Property Tax Bills Slated To Be Mailed Later This Week

You will soon learn if your property taxes are going up or not as the City now has the property assessment values from the Saskatchewan Assessment Management Agency (SAMA) and has passed a bylaw to assess taxes for 2021.

In an enquiry from Councillor Heather Eby at the last regular meeting of Council as to when the property tax bills will be going out to property owners Administration advised they would be mailed out later this week.

“Now that those bylaws (BYLAW 5644 - Property Tax Bylaw 2021 and BYLAW 5645 - Tax Payments, Discounts and Penalties Bylaw 2021) have been passed when will the tax notices go out? Tomorrow?” Councillor Eby asked.

Finance director Brian Acker said the tax notices would be processed and in the mail by the end of this week.

“We will be in the process of doing them over the next couple of weeks. So they will go out probably June 25th and then due July 31st. Just like a normal year except one month change,” Acker responded.

In most years property taxes are due June 30th with penalties applied for payment after that date.

The reason for the one month delay in having the final tax notices is because 2021 is a re-assessment year and SAMA needed more time to complete the assessments. Re-assessment years are every four years.

Introducing BYLAW 5645 Councillor Dawn Luhning said the delay by SAMA in providing the assessment values for 2021 property taxes was the fact it was a re-assessment year.

“SAMA provides the City with property assessment services and this year due to the re-assessment SAMA was later than what would normally be expected in applying the annual property assessments to the City,” Councillor Luhning said, adding “the delay resulted in a delay in the annual property tax cycle and as a result an extension to the normal due date of June 30th will be required in the year 2021.”

The property tax bills will see a 2.9 percent mill rate increase over top of 2020 requirements.

The breakdown - before mill rate factors are added to arrive at the final property tax bill - is the Moose Jaw Police Service will require 1.1 percent of the increase, a special set aside to the Parks and Recreation for capital projects will require 1.0 percent and .86 percent is required to maintain City programs and services. In the end it all requires an overall 2.9 percent mill rate increase to finance.

SEE RELATED - Reader Asks Question About Their 2021 Property Tax Bill