By Armchair Mayor

ROTHENBURGER: Politicians should not be immune from tax increases

Dec 19, 2018 | 5:15 AM

KAMLOOPS — WOULDN’T IT BE NICE if we could all receive a magic pill for Christmas that would make us immune from tax increases?

After all, income taxes are going up. Property taxes are going up. Car insurance is going up. Everything costs us more. We’re barely treading water in the cesspool of life.

But politicians have found that magic pill. It’s called writing their own paycheques. When ordinary folks get whacked with a tax increase they have no choice but to accept it and carry on.

All politicians have to do is boost their own pay.

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Take the Kamloops Thompson School Board, for example. Trustees gave themselves a pay hike of about 10.3 per cent this week. Many people would love to have a raise like that.

The rationale from the board is that the feds have removed a benefit that allowed civic politicians to get a large part of their stipends tax free. One hundred per cent of their paycheques will now be subject to income tax.

Their raise keeps the trustees roughly level with where they were before in terms of take-home.

One can sympathize with anyone having to pay more taxes. And school trustees, who will now be paid $22,250 a year ($25,350 for the chair) don’t exactly make big money.

Any trustee will be happy to tell you how hard they work for what they’re paid. They also say they’ve fallen behind what trustees are paid in other districts.

But why should they be different than anyone else? Why shouldn’t they have to absorb new taxes the same as average folks?

It shouldn’t be too much to ask our elected leaders to take their medicine along with everyone else.

I’m Mel Rothenburger, the Armchair Mayor.

Mel Rothenburger is a former mayor of Kamloops and newspaper editor. He publishes the ArmchairMayor.ca opinion website, and is a director on the Thompson-Nicola Regional District board. He can be reached at mrothenburger@armchairmayor.ca.