Red Deer homeowners will pay on average $57 more on their property bills in 2013 after city council set municipal tax rates on Monday.
Under the approved 2013 Tax Rate Bylaw, the tax bill will increase by 2.24 per cent for residential property; 2.11 per cent for multi-family property and 6.59 per cent for non-residential property.
The combined tax increase includes the municipal tax requirement and the Alberta Education and Piper Creek Foundation requisitions.
This year an owner of an average residential property assessed at $300,000 will pay $4.74 more each month bringing the annual tax bill to $2,607 from 2,550.
The owner of an average non-residential property will pay $296 ($24.73 per month) and multi-family property owners will pay an additional $56 ($4.65) more on their tax bills.
Council adopted the bylaw by a vote of 6-2. Councillors Chris Stephan and Paul Harris were opposed. Coun. Cindy Jefferies was absent.
Coun. Tara Veer said council does not have a policy in place which guides the tax distribution of the three property tax classes.
Veer said in absence of policy this year’s increase offered the best balance.
“It’s also fair for property owners in that it protects them from significant tax rate shock this year,” said Veer, noting the ratio is fair and favourable for commercial properties.
“It recognizes the multi-family as a hybrid tax class between being residential and a commercial business.”
On April 29, council gave first reading to a tax bylaw that gave a straight municipal rate increase across the three classes. The bylaw was defeated on the second motion.
Coun. Paul Harris supported this option and questioned the comments by other councillors who termed multi-family property as business property.
“A lot of multi-family are not businesses,” said Harris.
“They are people who live in condos or live in buildings that are considered multi-family. “So to shift the burden of the tax base to people living in condominiums and calling them businesses that’s not fair. That is completely not fair.”
Harris said just to apply a blanket tax to a multi-family and saying you’re more fair is completely wrong and that’s something the public needs to know.
Coun. Chris Stephan said he would have liked to have seen an option that treated businesses as businesses and eliminated the multi-family ratio. Stephan said taxpayers do not care about ratios, they care about how much money is coming out of their pockets.
“And if we did that we could actually reduce residential rates,” said Stephan. “I think that is a defendable position. I hope one day we can get there. At the end of the day, taxpayers don’t care about ratios.”
Property tax notices will be mailed out on May 22 and taxes are due on June 28. Go to www.reddeer.ca/tax
crhyno@www.reddeeradvocate.com