Published in Business in Vancouver
Premier Christy Clark announced January 18 that she has created a new $5 million fund to provide financial protection for forestry contractors. She also announced tax relief on previous compensation payments to those workers.
The $5 million fund will strengthen payment protection for those who contract their services to forest sector companies. Logging contractors who provide services to licensees but are not paid because of licensee insolvency can be compensated from the new fund.
“Our promise to logging contractors was to guarantee they receive payment for work performed and to ensure fair tax treatment on earlier compensation,” Clark said. “Today we're honouring those commitments.”
Tax relief will come to contractors who received compensation under the Forestry Revitalization Act. Both the federal and provincial governments have agreed on a plan to relieve the contractors of a tax hit resulting from them receiving compensation payments from the B.C. Forestry Revitalization Trust, which was established in 2003.
As a result, approximately 190 contractors will benefit from tax relief payments up to $10 million in provincial contributions and will not incur additional tax liabilities from these payments.
