REGINA (Staff) – A tax policy proposal released by the province last week meets with approval of the Saskatchewan Association of Rural Municipalities.
“Looking at it in its present state I don’t think we have any major concerns with it,” said president Sinclair Harrison. “Over all, I guess we’re going to have to give it a passing mark.”
The proposal was released for discussion so legislation can be drafted for the next spring sitting of the legislature. The tax policy needs to be in place for the Jan. 1, 1997 implementation of a new property assessment system.
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Ron Davis, assistant deputy minister of municipal government, said the government wants to “move this along pretty briskly and seek consensus where we can.”
He said the policy will likely be completed within a couple of months.
Urban mill rates could vary
The draft proposes that rural municipalities retain a uniform mill rate, while urban municipalities be allowed to introduce variable mill rates or mill rate factors for different classes of property.
Harrison said rural municipalities prefer a uniform rate because of overlapping boundaries of school divisions and RMs.
Complicated system
“In the cities, the school divisions and the municipal boundaries are co-terminus,” he said. “Once you get out in rural Sask-atchewan you have several municipalities within a school unit or even one municipality divided into two or three school units. Once you start getting away from a uniform mill rate … it just makes things very, very complicated.”
Davis said the urban municipalities wanted a diverse range of tools to deal with different properties.
Now, farmland is assessed at 60 percent of value, urban land at 50 percent and all buildings at 100 percent.
“This document argues there is probably a role for (percentages of value) and it’s probably the province that would set it.”
The document also suggests rural and urban municipalities be able to set minimum amounts for property tax and be able to phase in tax changes that result from the reassessment.
