City council has approved this year’s property tax bylaw, which sets the policy for various property classes and determines the sums necessary to meet estimated revenues, expenses and mill rate factors.
Members gave three unanimous readings to the bylaw during the recent regular council meeting, which means the bylaw is now in effect.
City council initially approved several recommendations related to the 2022 tax policy during a May executive committee meeting. These recommendations affected property classes such as residential, commercial/industrial, grain elevators, railways and pipelines, and the resource industry.
Officially approving the tax policy and implementing a bylaw will:
- Establish the municipal rates of taxation for 2022
- Define the classes and subclasses for tax purposes
- Enumerate the mill rate factors applied to each subclass
- Exclude property assessments that generate fewer than $100 in municipal tax revenue from the supplemental roll for this year
- Set a uniform base tax of $100 for contributing to the waterworks capital fund to partially fund the annual cast iron water main replacement project
- Indicate the taxation rates for the school divisions as determined by the lieutenant governor in council
While city council approved a municipal tax increase of 5.45 per cent during budget discussions last December, because it wants to close the tax gap between residential and commercial, homeowners will face an increase this year equal to 6.40 per cent and commercial an increase of 6.56 per cent.
This year’s mill rate factors include:
- Residential, multi-unit, condo: 0.7810
- Commercial/industrial: 1.4112
- Golf courses: 0.3833
- Elevators, railway right of ways, pipelines, resource properties: 1.4074
- Other agricultural lands, non-arable lands, and improvements: 0.2318
The next regular council meeting is Monday, June 13.
