INNISFAIL - Citizens will soon see a good news property tax bill for 2018 that comes as close as possible to reflecting the town's heralded zero per cent tax increase budget that was passed by council last December.
After recently receiving the provincial school tax requisition, and final property assessments in late February, Heather Whymark, the town's director of corporate services, presented the 2018 Property Tax Rate Bylaw at council's regular meeting on March 26. The bylaw was unanimously passed by council.
"Absolutely (good news). I was very happy with the assessment values with no tax increase and they (assessments) weren't significant enough to hurt the taxpayers either," said Whymark, adding for homes valued between $166,000 and $600,000, about half will see a small increase in overall taxes while the other half will see a slight decrease. For a homeowner whose house has been assessed at $335,000 it will mean a tax increase or decrease of about $15.80.
"It is not big. Some of them will probably not notice that they have a change in their (tax) notice," said Whymark, adding the town's overall assessment went up two per cent this year, from $1.83 million last year to $1.98 million in 2018.
"The overall assessment went up but with commercial getting most of the increase," she said.
She said this year's provincial school requisition came in at $2.9 million compared to $2.7 million last year, a $200,000 increase that proved not to make a significant impact for Innisfail homeowners.
"I was actually thinking it was going to be a little higher but it wasn't, so that's good news for us," said Whymark, who told council the 2018 School Tax Rate will mean a tax decrease for non-residential properties.
"The only reason the non-residential went down was because of the higher assessment," said Whymark, noting the town experienced new development on commercial and industrial properties last year. "The higher assessment you have, the lower (school tax) because you are giving more money into the pool so they then recalculate it out differently. That is what helped that go down. They didn't need as much (school tax) because the assessment went up."
Council was also told this year's seniors' foundation requisition came in at $21,666, the same as last year.
With the bylaw now passed the town can now prepare the 2018 Assessment and Taxation notices for citizens and businesses. They will be sent out by the end of April. Residents will have 67 days to file an appeal, either before or on the deadline date of June 28. Taxes must be paid without penalty on or before the June 30 deadline.
