Red Deerians will soon be paying more for revenue and assessment service fees.
Council heard that since fees for tax certificates, tax recovery notices, account documents, and assessment information for residential or multi-family properties have been frozen since 2016 or 2018, it was time to bring them up to market amounts.
The new fees, which more in line with those charged by other municipalities, will range from $19 to $92 for these services, compared to a previous $15 to $75.
Council only opted to hold the line on the $15 fee to be charged for customer errors — such as when people overpay their taxes according to their own mistake and then request a cheque for a partial refund, rather than allowing the over-payment to be a credit towards the next year’s taxes.
Administration wanted to raise this fee to $27.53 as it takes a lot of staff time and effort to make out these cheque and to mail them out, said Lisa Perkins, general-manager of corporate and employee services for the city.
But Coun. Dianne Wyntjes successfully argued that people who need this money returned immediately are probably not in a good financial position, so should not be paying more for a fee.