NEWS PHOTO Cypress County Reeve Dan Hamilton pictured at the county offices in Dunmore on January 21, 2020.
Cypress County has not seen a major increase in unpaid property tax bill from oilpatch companies, Reeve Dan Hamilton told the News on Tuesday, a day after reports that bills had ballooned across the province.
Hamilton does however, say the county is keeping a close eye on revenue, budgets and how the province is handling a tax review of “linear” property, like wells and pipelines, and which provides more than half the county’s tax revenue.
“Fortunately we don’t have a lot of unpaid property tax,” said Hamilton. “We haven’t got any definite (regarding the assessment review), but council is always looking at where we are going and what we’re doing. We’ve tried to maintain the same level of service that we’ve always given our ratepayers. That’s our focus.”
Hamilton said final figures from the 2019 tax season (which ended in mid-November) where not available. The two largest accounts though, are keeping pace with a special payment plan devised in the fall.
However, the assessment base, which determines taxation levels and bills, will likely be in flux until at least 2021.
That situation, according to a lobby group made up of counties and municipal districts, is putting heavy strain on rural communities.
“If Alberta’s property tax system is not amended to prevent oil and gas companies from refusing to pay property taxes, many rural municipalities will struggle to remain viable,” said Al Kemmere, president of RMA.
The Rural Municipalities of Alberta announced on Monday that unpaid tax bills, now totalling $173 million for its 69 members, are up from $81 million in 2019. Recent court rulings have put municipalities behind secured creditors and well abandonment needs for bankrupt companies.
Uncertainty from the province on tax system is aggravating the situation, Kemmere stated in a release.
“Municipalities … need similar support from government and industry to remain viable and serve rural Alberta’s businesses and residents,” it read.
Cypress County budgeted to collect a grand total of $22.4 million in tax revenue in 2019, including $12 million from linear assessment property (wells, pipelines and power lines).
Last year in June, Alberta Municipal Affairs announced it would provide $24 million to municipalities that cancelled the education portion on bills for some shallow natural gas wells and related pipelines.
That was to help stabilize losses for oilpatch companies until a review of how the wells are assessed takes place, assumedly leading to lower values and therefore lower bills if mill rates remained the same.
Cypress County’s share of the 2019 shallow gas program totalled $1.6 million – money that was remitted by the province under a program that calls for the 2020 shortfall to be made up by municipalities.
Swann protests ‘tax revolt’
In response, former Alberta Liberal Leader David Swann, the former chief medical officer for Medicine Hat, is set to announce that he is prepared to withhold paying his provincial tax this year to highlight the double standard.
A joint press conference is scheduled for Wednesday with the Alberta Liabilities Disclosure Project, a group that argues the energy sector is not doing enough to meet its responsibility related to taxation and well-abandonment.
