City council has approved changes to two bylaws that both deal with extending the deadline for when homeowners are required to submit their taxes for 2023.
During its recent regular meeting, council gave three unanimous readings to Bylaw No. 5696, tax payments, discounts and penalties bylaw, and Bylaw No. 5697, mobile home licensing bylaw. The changes go into effect immediately since there was no opposition to the amendments.
Tax deadline extension
The updated Bylaw No. 5696 gives taxpayers until Thursday, Aug. 31, to pay their property taxes for this year.
A council report explained that the Saskatchewan Assessment Management Agency (SAMA) annually provides the City of Moose Jaw with property assessment information. However, this year SAMA was later than expected in supplying the annual assessments.
This delay resulted in a similar interruption in the annual property tax cycle, where the normal deadline to pay property taxes is June 30. After learning about the delay this past spring, council extended the payment deadline to July 31.
City administration needed a further adjournment to Aug. 31 because of issues transferring all existing customers and material to the new Enterprise Resource Program (ERP) software, the report said. The property tax module was scheduled to go live on May 29, but that was pushed to June 22 due to issues with data conversion from the legacy program to the new system.
“Administration will require additional time to prepare the property tax notices for 2023 and do our due diligence while producing the notices in the new system,” the report noted.
The municipality will see a decrease in penalty tax revenues this year by extending the due date, but city hall requires extra time to prepare the new system to generate the tax notices, the document continued.
Last year the revenue from tax surcharges generated in July was $38,626, while in August, that revenue was $31,634. The estimated revenue the city will lose because of the delay in moving to the new ERP property tax module is over $70,000.
The report added that taxes not paid on or before Aug. 31 would result in late payment penalties of one per cent per month compounded monthly and an extra one per cent per month compounded annually added on the first day of each of the remaining months of the taxation year that the taxes remain outstanding.
Mobile home licensing bylaw
City hall’s troubles with its in-house ERP system mean residents who live in mobile homes will also be given until Thursday, Aug. 31, to pay their property taxes. Furthermore, mobile home operators will be allowed to collect and pay their annual licences monthly, a feature the city removed after amending the bylaw earlier this year.
“… it was felt that having to pay a lump sum annual mobile home licence could place mobile homeowners in a difficult position and result in undue hardship for the owners,” a council report said.
The next regular council meeting is Monday, July 26.
