I can see this as a first step to asking for more money..

http://www.winnipegfreepress.com/breakingnews/Committee-seeks-to-review-councillor-tax-exemption-119875379.html

Council will review the tax exempt status of their salary.

Deank wrote:http://www.winnipegfreepress.com/breakingnews/Committee-seeks-to-review-councillor-tax-exemption-119875379.html

Council will review the tax exempt status of their salary.

And I thought the only reason politicians ran for office is Public Service.

Why is there a tax exemption to begin with. Make everybody pay equally. If that means a pay increase to make up the difference so be it.

I know of nobody that feels that the present councillors, or Mayor for that matter, earn what they are presently paid.

My councillor, Gerbasi, isn't worth half of what she is being paid.

Time for a change is in order all right. But not the kind they had in mind from my perspective.

there is a tax exempt status because its a throw back to when they were paid a pittance. Then when we started reducing the number of councillors and increasing what they were paid, this was simply not removed from the equation, I am guessing because of greed.

TADA!!!

http://www.winnipegfreepress.com/breakingnews/Review-to-look-at-how-councillors-are-paid--120081854.html

"He said if a portion of councillors' salary is taken away by removing
the tax-free portion, it makes sense to add that compensation back to
their existing salary."

"
Nordman said Winnipeg’s city councillors did not run for office for
the money, and are compensated far less than provincially and
federally-elected politicians, noting municipal politicians work 24/7
for 11 months of the year.

"City councillors are not paid the going rate," Nordman said."

24/7? 11 months of the year?

Huh?

smokes a wee bit of something eh?

more like 2/5 200

for most of them.

Exactly.

Further...

Why is it too difficult to tax the 1/3 that's currently not taxed?

After all, they didn't run for the money! Said so themselves....

the problem I see is that EVERYONE is taxed a different rate. So I dont understand how they could "add" more money to cover it lost.

For instance. Harvey who is retired and I believe no wife or children. Most likely receives some sort of pension from being a teacher.

Mike Pagtakhan, Married, father of two, income from other areas.

They both make the same Base Councillor salary ( okay almost... Mike gets more as deputy speaker )... but lets pretend they both make the same councillor salary.


ever better pretend that its 66K (for maths sake)


come income tax time..

Mike P 66K income + say 20K outside interests - -22K for 1/3 tax free-10k personal allowance - 10K for wife - 8k for two kids. So his taxable salary is 86k-50 = 36k

Harvey is 66K +say 15K pension -22K for 1/3tax free so 81k-22-10K personal allowance = 49K

two different tax brackets so the 22K tax free impacts them differently. How do you decide what the difference is by them being taxed on the 22K now?

You dont just find out what the taxes are on 22K because its different depending on what tax bracket you are in. AND... we cant have even one councillor getting paid less right? so everyone goes up by the highest common denominator.. some essentially get a raise..

and thats even before you take into account that THEY APPEAR TO BE ASKING FOR A RAISE

Does anyone living around here (other then Winnipeg’s city councillors) think they deserve a raise?

If city councillors in other cities make more, and that's an issue for our councillors (who already said they weren't in it for the money) then perhaps they should run for council elsewheres where the money is greener?

That's my initial knee-jerk reaction to all this anyway...

I'd really like someone in the media to press them on this whole 27/7 - 11 months a year thing tho, that's just B.S.

Just because you may be thinking about a problem or issue while your on the toilet taking a dump @ 3 a.m. does not mean your "on the clock"...your on the can. Big difference!

Our councillors are over-paid.

Most, if not all, are second tier players and the job is the best they will ever have.....something that is wrong imo.

The job should be done by the top people around that give a certain amount of their time towards community service and then get out.

The city is not being run by professionals. It is being run by schmucks that rely of the bureaucrats for information and that is not a good position to be in. imo anyway.

How do we entice the best people to get involved? Pretty thankless job eh?

We need to attract more altruists.

I think they're out there. Hope so anyway.

I know at least one is.

Given the number of people they represent if the job was anywhere NEAR 8 hours a day then I would say the pay is about what it should be. There should be no extra pay for being chief whichwacther of the thingymajig department.

Now MPs and MLAs salaries are a totally different matter. An MLA represents about 1/4ish of the amount of people as a councillor and gets paid twice as much. An MP represents about 1.2 times as many people as a councillor and gets paid three times as much. I would be more then happy to see those two salaries go down to be "equal" with the councillor salary. ie MLA should only get paid 30K per year. MP about 75K.