Prince Albert City Council has been talking about the issue of unpaid taxes (File Photo/paNOW Staff)

By Michael Joel-Hansen

Taxes

Collecting unpaid taxes can be a problem

May 24, 2019 | 10:19 AM

After learning locals owe $3 million in city taxes, councillors are looking at the avenues they can take to collect payment.

Saskatchewan Urban Municipalities Association (SUMA) President Gordon Barnhart, who is in charge of lobbying the provincial government on behalf of towns and cities, said he would encourage any municipality having issues to bring them forward.

“I think that SUMA is always open to its membership, to have ideas. There’s always the approach of having a resolution brought before the main assembly of SUMA next February,” he said.

The SUMA president explained urban municipalities do have tools at their disposal to deal with people not paying their property taxes. These include hiring a collection agency, taking possession of the property or taking the person to court. Barnhart said all of the processes can require time and do cost money.

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“Each one has some downside or disadvantage to them,” he said.

In the big picture, Barnhart said he doesn’t believe the issue of people not paying their taxes is a major issue across Saskatchewan. However, he said in of some of the province’s smaller communities there are other issues that lead to taxes being outstanding.

“In some communities, the chief administrative officer perhaps let it slide a little too much, or they were busy,” he said.

Barnhart said another possible action municipalities could take is appealing to civic pride, while trying to stress the importance of taxes in paying for public services like water, garbage and fire.

For the R.M. of Prince Albert, people not paying their taxes is not a major issue according to Roxanne Roy, R.M. administrator.

“In 2018, moving forward as of Dec 31 we only had about $61,000 in arrears,” she said.

Roy said many of the R.M. residents make the effort to pay their taxes in July, where they get a seven per cent discount.

For people who don’t pay on time, the R.M. will place a lien on the property. If this is not effective they get their lawyer involved to try and get what’s owed. If these steps don’t work the R.M. will work to take title of the property. In Roy’s experience, most people send money once they start getting letters from the lawyer.

Roy added when people don’t pay on time it leads to issues as the R.M. budget is based on what they expect to come in.

“If they don’t come in and pay, you know, that’s revenue that’s kind of lost for that year, so there’s a shortfall,” she said.

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MichaelJoel.Hansen@jpbg.ca

On Twitter: @mjhskcdn