CADOGAN, Alta. – Farmers will have to put the touch on oil companies to help pay their tax bill after the province’s municipal act is changed, said the assistant to the Farmers Advocate.
Recent changes to the municipal act mean farmers with oil and gas wells on their land will have those few acres assessed as commercial. The municipality will send a tax bill for the commercial land to the farmer and it will then be up to the farmer to collect the bill from the oil and gas companies, said Paul Vasseur.
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“It’s a real boon doggle,” Vasseur told farmers at a surface rights meeting in this west-central Alberta community.
Taxes for most well sites, usually about five acres, will amount to $50 to $100. Vasseur said some farmers already have difficulty collecting their annual lease fees from the companies and doubt they’ll ever see money for their tax bills.
He said the Office of the Farmers Advocate, an independent government body that helps rural Albertans settle disputes and get information, is protesting the new tax collection rules which go into effect in the 1996-97 tax year. They want the bills to be sent directly to oil and gas companies.
Last year the provincial government reduced the amount of tax for equipment on well sites.
Some oil companies estimate it will cost $300 in paperwork and manpower to collect a $50 tax bill, said Vasseur.
“The municipalities don’t like it, the oil companies don’t like it and the farmers don’t like it.”
Vasseur said government officials have said they are looking at changing the new regulations, but it may not be until after the legislature sits again in the spring.
