Pandemic Major Reason For Increasing Tax Arrears

The year 2020 may have been the Year Of The COVID - 19 but the effects of the pandemic are still showing up on the outstanding property tax arrears.

As part of the second quarter 2021 financial report Council was told property tax arrears are continuing to grow but at the same time more arrears are being moved into a payment option so the City is receiving some of the monies outstanding.

During questioning the City’s director of financial services Brian Acker stated the increase was due to the pandemic and that other cities in the province are seeing the same type of pandemic related tax arrears.

Property tax arrears increased from $2,225,883 on June 30, 20210 to $2,564,950 a year later on June 30, 2021. Year over year the property tax arrears increased by $339,067 this compared to $316,327 increase in property tax arrears from June 30, 2019 to June 30, 2020.

Despite the increase in property tax arrears Acker pointed out more arrears are now in arrears payment plans than in the past to help solve the problem.

On June 30, 2020 the majority of delinquent taxes had property tax liens taken out against the properties whereas on June 30, 2021 the majority of delinquent taxes were in arrears payment plans.

The arrears in payment plans on June 30, 2020 was $901,705 but had grown to $1,649,202 on June 30, 2021.

The arrears with property tax liens was $1,324,178 on June 30, 2020 but had decreased to $915,748 on June 30, 2021.

In the post Council meeting news scrum MJ Independent asked Acting Mayor Dawn Luhning if she was concerned about the rising property tax arrears.

“Yeah sure, right you know that’s you know tax arrears should always be concerning for a council right. That’s something that is out of our control really we just have to, you know tax arrears are tax arrears right you just have to deal with it the way we deal with it,” Acting Mayor Luhning said.

“We are working really hard with property owners who are having issues and trying to find ways to help them make payments,” city manager Jim Puffalt said.

“So that is something Council directed us to do last year already was to find ways to help property taxpayers to work their way through this. So we are glad to be able to do that. And as things open up and the economy gets back to normal we hope to see those go back to a more normal level. As the director of finance said today this is prevalent across the province,” Puffalt said.

“We suspect across Canada and North America that lots of people are having issues with payments so we have to find ways to give them a hand.”

Asked about the ability for some of the property owners to repay their back taxes giving the potential lower earnings in Moose Jaw compared to other communities in the province Acting Mayor Luhning said “sure you could sit and worry about it. It happens in some cases that people can’t pay and there are rules in the Cities Act that allow us to do what we have to do and take a property.”