The cost of administering the first year of Saskatchewan’s farmland property tax rebate was more than the government expected. About 24 percent more.
The agriculture department planned to spend $524,633 for administration, but the actual cost was $649,193, according to information obtained by the Canadian Taxpayers Federation through a freedom-of-information request.
Richard Truscott, the federation’s Saskat-chewan director, said the cost overrun isn’t large, but it is money that could have been spent elsewhere.
“We should, as taxpayers, sweat the small stuff because it does add up,” he said.
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The two-year program rebates 25 percent of the education portion of property tax, excluding the home quarter or highest assessed quarter. The average payment is $450.
Truscott said the program is helping farmers only temporarily and the government should instead find a way to deliver and sustain real tax relief.
“It would be much simpler, easier and less expensive to simply increase the operating grants for our school boards.”
Agriculture minister Clay Serby said the department had no idea how much it would cost to administer the program. He attributed the overspending to start-up expenses, including computers and software. He said that equipment could be used elsewhere after the rebate program ends.
Saskatchewan Party agriculture critic Bill Boyd criticized the overspending, noting that less than half of the applications for 2000 have been processed. He suggested rural municipalities could have better administered the program.
Serby said if the Saskatchewan Association of Rural Municipalities wants to do that, it can.
“Why this didn’t happen is because in our policy we said that the home quarter … would have to be exempt,” Serby said during question period in the legislature. “And what SARM has said to us, all along, is that they don’t have the capability to address the issue of exempting the home quarter for all municipalities that would be involved in this process across the province.”
He later told reporters that if SARM changes its mind, the government is willing to hand over the administration.
