WHEREAS for the 2017/18 fiscal year forward, the Province of Saskatchewan increased the Provincial Sales Tax (PST) from  five per cent to six per cent and made changes to exemptions under the PST, including to construction and consulting costs where municipalities incur substantial costs, increasing provincial revenues by an estimated $800 million per fiscal year;

WHEREAS the province also made changes to the Municipal Revenue Sharing program in response to these changes to reduce total revenues provided to municipalities from one full point of PST revenues to 0.75 of one full point of PST revenues;

WHEREAS municipalities are incurring additional costs as a result of changes to the PST that are ultimately passed along to ratepayers in the form of property taxation;

WHEREAS the federal government recognizes that goods and services taxes on municipalities are a form of double taxation and provides exemptions for municipalities to be exempt from GST;

BE IT RESOLVED that SARM lobby the Province of Saskatchewan to either make municipalities exempt from Provincial Sales Tax or to restore Municipal Revenue Sharing funding to one full point of Provincial Sales Tax revenues.