Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I was talking earlier today in my Member's statement about taxation, and I asked the Minister some questions. I would like to follow up with more questions to the Minister of Finance: can the Minister advise, of that $9.6 million, how much is owed in taxes by the residents of the hamlet of Fort Liard and have a breakdown of principle and interest? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Masi. Minister of Finance.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, the principle that is owed by the Hamlet of Fort Liard is approximately $700,000: $699,675; interest would be $1,169,999 million; a total of $1.8 million that is owed in taxes by the Hamlet of Fort Liard.
I thank the Minister for that answer. So, we are talking about possible solutions in there. When we are trying to move forward, would the government be willing to waive the interest fee if the residents come up with a plan to pay the principle of the taxation? I am not asking the taxation to be waived. I am asking if we can come up with a plan to pay for these taxes.
Under the property tax legislation, outstanding interest charges are considered to be a part of the tax outstanding. Remission of any property tax or interest would be decision of the executive council. As I said before, we want to work with the residents on a repayment plan, and, if we start forgiving interest, then we will have to do it across the Northwest Territories.
In tax-based communities, people pay a property tax to get the services that are offered within that community. In the GTA, they pay the property tax to government with funding through the hamlets and community governments. We pay these. We pay the costs of maintaining that community, and people expect services, but a lot of times they are not willing to live up to their end of the bargain, which is to pay their community tax. Mr. Speaker, I am going in circles here, so I will stop there. Thank you.
I thank the Minister. I understand we can go around and around in circles. What I am trying to do is come up with a plan that we can move forward for the residents of Fort Liard. The problem is that somebody made a promise to them and now, no fault of their own, they made a decision that they were not going to pay their taxes, so what we are trying to do is come up with a plan to do it. Previously, the Minister talked about the Property Assessment and Taxation Act, and, if I understand him correctly, outstanding interest charges on property taxes are considered part of the taxation outstanding. Would it be possible to separate the tax and interest component in the act to potentially waive this fee?
When I said that I was going in circles, I meant my answer was going in circles and I was trying to find a place to end the answer, not the questioning itself. The Department of Finance, we do track the principle and interest separately for each individual account, and all taxation legislation provides for an interest component, which motivates residents to keep their accounts with the government current. Changing the legislation to set up for an interest and then to potentially waive the fee would be contradictory and problematic as a policy choice. The government does need to continue to charge interest on delinquent accounts. As mentioned earlier, the structure is currently there to remit all or a portion of the tax on the authority of the executive council.
Masi. Oral questions. Member for Nahendeh.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker, and I thank the Minister for that answer. I understand that, but, if we want to move forward, we have got to come up with a plan to work with these people. I mean, that is my challenge, is that I am sitting here right now; we are not having any direction to encourage these people to pay their taxes because we are in trouble with that, so what I am trying to do is come up with a solution. Would the Minister be willing to have his staff go into the community to work with the affected residents to come up with a plan to try to resolve this issue? Just not talking about the interest, but I am talking about the taxation. If we can get that resolved, then we can move forward.
The quickest solution to the situation that we face right now is for people to honour the commitments that they have made and pay their property taxes. That way, we are in a position to provide the level of service that they have become accustomed to. We need that to happen, but, failing that, we understand that there are some issues. Again, some people are so far into tax arrears that they find it problematic to try to work their way out of it. We are interested in coming up with a repayment plan. I think the Member's question was: would we go into the community and meet with them? I think, as he said, as the Member said in his Member's statement before, we were there in March. We would be willing to go back. We would have to have a coordinated approach with the First Nations government in the hamlet, because we want to make sure that we are all on the same page and all want to resolve the issue. So the answer is, yes, we would consider going into the community again. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Masi. Oral questions. Member for Kam Lake.
