Mayor pans city's entertainment tax

Winnipeg Mayor Sam Katz says the city's entertainment tax needs a major overhaul.

The taxation system has been heavily criticized by non-profit arts groups that are normally exempt from charging the 10 per cent ticket levy. A number of those groups may now have to charge the tax on tickets for upcoming festivals, such as the Fringe Festival.

• FROM APRIL 7, 2005: Fringe performers face entertainment tax

For mayor Sam Katz, the entertainment tax has been nothing but a headache. Even when he worked in the entertainment business, he says, he didn't like the tax. "I hated it. I still don't like it today as mayor," he says, saying the system is complicated and inconsistent, and if it were up to him, things would change.

"From my point of view, I think we should take a long, hard look at simplifying it," he says.

"Separating the movie theatres, putting them in one category, and after that just saying, you know what? Let's just get rid of the whole scenario," he says. "It doesn't make sense. What do we need all this grief and aggravation for?"

Money returned to arts groups

Katz points out that revenue from the entertainment tax which is paid by patrons, not by the arts groups themselves is given back to the arts community through grants. He says while arts groups are complaining now about the tax, they should keep that in mind.

"Every nickel that comes in from entertainment funding, 100 per cent plus, goes to the arts community. That's where the large amounts of money to fund the arts come from," he says.

"This is your money. If you don't want to collect it, don't expect it later on, because it all funnels right through to you."

Katz says the majority of the money that comes in from the tax between 70 and 80 per cent comes from movie theatres. Most of the rest, he says, comes from shows put on at the city's large venues, such as the Concert Hall, the Burton Cummings Theatre, and the Pantages Playhouse.

That's little help to Zaz Bajon, manager of the Manitoba Theatre Centre, which runs the Fringe Festival. The festival may have to charge the tax at hundreds of shows at this summer's festival; Bajon says that goes against the spirit of the bylaw.

"My problem is when the by law was written, the intent was to exempt groups like the MTC, and it was really to stop abuse by road shows coming to town, being sponsored by non-profit organizations so they avoided paying the entertainment funding tax," he says.

Bajon will go to City Hall next week to make his case against the tax applying to Fringe shows and he may find he has an ally in the city's mayor.