By Greg Higgins

Property reassessment notices are not taxation notices: City

Mar 1, 2017 | 12:00 PM

Notices on property values have been sent out, but city administrators want the public to know these are just assessments, not tax increase notices.

North Battleford city manager, Jim Puffalt, informed council at Monday’s meeting that homeowners will be receiving property reassessment notices in the mail any day now, which will be based on Jan. 1, 2015 market values. He wanted to reiterate these are not tax notices.

“Rates haven’t been set, so even though their assessment might show an increase it doesn’t necessarily mean there will be a property tax increase, Puffalt said. “It just means your value has gone up. It all depends on the mill rates the city puts on. We are looking at three per cent property tax increases.”

The mill rate is used to calculate property tax and is a figure which represents per $1,000 of assessed property value. Puffalt said as property values go up, the city will try to make the value’s revenue neutral to balance out the provincial increase.

The major change, which could cause problems, is this year the province is increasing tax values on properties from 70 per cent to 80 per cent. Puffalt said administration needs to do some “vigorous calculations” to make sure the city takes the reassessment increase back to zero impact tax-wise and then add the three percent.

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“If our assessment, overall, goes up 10 per cent then we drop our mill rate 10 per cent,” Puffalt said. “We make sure we are not collecting more money based on that 10 per cent extra assessment.”

Puffalt said there were few changes outside the residential property increase from 70 per cent to 80 per cent. Properties zoned for commercial, residential, railway and pipeline have minimal if any changes.

According to Puffalt, the process can be very complicated and said the best thing people can do is phone city hall and speak with assessment staff. He added anyone who wants to appeal their assessment has 60 days to do so. All the information for an appeal can be found on the notice.

Greg.higgins@jpbg.ca

On Twitter @realgreghiggins.

by Greg Higgins

Property reassessment notices are not taxation notices: City

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