Salespeople > Salesperson Resources > Bulletins & Alerts > January 5 – Consultative Communication: Fee Increase

VSA Industry Bulletin
January 5, 2023

Consultative Communication: Fee Increase

Please see the Fee Review Consultative Communication below.

All feedback should be sent to: feedback@vsabc.ca

VSA Fee Review

Fee Review for the 2023/2024 Fiscal Year

We are undertaking a fee review for all our licensees. Over the past year, we have embarked on several projects which will provide the industry with:

Increased awareness and transparency of issue resolution
Wider range of options for issue resolution
Faster and easier resolution of issues, and
Increased overall efficiency in applying and renewing licenses.

At this time, we are preparing a fee schedule for implementation with the start of the 2023/2024 fiscal year in April. As part of the process, we are providing you with an opportunity for feedback. We will make a final decision on the actual implementation of increases within 30 days. As always, we work with government, industry, and consumers to provide the best possible ways to provide fair and prompt service within our regulatory model while balancing associated costs to license and regulate your sector.

INFORMATION ABOUT YOUR FEES

Our authority to set fees and our mandate to recover costs

The Motor Dealer Act gives us the legal authority to set fees to fund our operations. The government has tasked us with regulating and licensing the motor dealer industry and, we have authority to set licensing fees and other charges to cover the costs in doing so. Before we increase fees, we are required to consult with you, and give you 30 days’ notice prior to changing or introducing fee changes.

What is happening?

We are in the process of setting your licensing fees for 2023/2024. Following a review of our costs and forecasted revenues, we are proposing to change some of our fees. To sustain and improve the oversight of the motor dealer industry and recover costs, we are giving you the opportunity to provide feedback on the following proposed fee increases and other fee changes.

The proposed fee increases are outlined in the attached fee schedule: Appendix 1.

Why are fees changing?

Your licensing fees pay for the direct costs of regulating the motor dealer industry such as licensing, compliance inspections, complaint handling, education, and enforcement activities as well as indirect costs like IT, finance and accounting, and maintaining our offices. Every year these costs increase. In some cases, cost increases are consistent with inflation, in other cases increases are based on specific and unique factors related to our industry (for example, changes to the laws that result in new regulatory requirements). Our costs for regulating the industry have increased significantly due to increases in both the number and complexity of consumer and licensee inquires. Further, as experienced by all businesses, labour costs and other costs such as property taxes have significantly increased over the past year. Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic we significantly tried to control spending to operate, but inflationary and other financial costs are now outpacing those efforts. This is not sustainable and due to increased inflationary pressures, we are proposing a fee increase for the 2023/2024 fiscal year.

How are fees determined?

We operate on a cost recovery basis. We receive no funding from the province of British Columbia. This means that the costs to license and regulate industry and provide trade practice regulation is primarily covered by licensing fees. In setting these fees, we allocate costs using several factors to determine overall costs for us to operate. The factors that determine costs are broken down by the functions of our organization. Once these costs are determined, fees are developed so that projected revenues closely match our costs to regulate. Due to the uncertainty that COVID-19 caused in the marketplace, we have used fact-based assumptions from our previous fee review and economic forecasting to allocate costs.

What your fees pay for:

Give us your feedback:

This consultation document provides information about the proposed fee changes and is an opportunity for you to provide feedback. To provide feedback, please click on the link: feedback@vsabc.ca

The deadline to provide feedback is Friday, February 9, 2023.

What happens next?

Once the feedback timeframe has closed and feedback has been assessed, we will provide notice prior to any fee changes.

Salespeople

VSA Industry Bulletin January 5, 2023