The mayor of Kamloops says a move this week by council to slightly lower the heavy industrial tax rate, shifting some of that burden on to residents, was an effort to address some tax inequality.

Mayor Ken Christian says Domtar is the biggest taxpayer in the city with over $5-million every year in taxes.

Christian says if Domtar were to pack up and leave it would mean an instant five-percent property tax hike to fill the void.

“I think council on balance wanted to make sure that we could help them in some small way, and it’s about a $200,000 tax shift,” he said. “It’s not anything major.”

“I think that is generally the sentiment. We do want to investigate it a little bit further and see what other ideas there are available for us to lower industrial tax rates in Kamloops.”

The average heavy industrial mill rate, calculated using 12 comparable cities in BC for 2018, was $23.36 per $1,000 of assessed value.

The Kamloops mill rate was $73.34 per $1,000 of assessed value and staff wanted to reduce it slightly to $71.81 per $1,000 of assessed value.

The move wasn’t just to address sky high heavy industry tax rates, as Christian says hope for growth in that sector has failed to materialize as has the Trans Mountain pipeline and associated tax revenue there.