Natural gas companies meet payment criteria agreed upon with Cypress County

By Medicine Hat News on June 12, 2020.

Two major natural gas producers in southeast Alberta have met the terms of an agreement to pay property taxes from 2019 over the course of several months last winter.

Canlin Energy and Pinecliff Energy both approached Cypress County last fall requesting payment plans in order to manage cash flow in the sector that has struggled with extremely low prices and the fact that financing is more difficult to arrange.

Councillors approved a schedule of equal payments over four months and agreed to waive penalties if the bills were paid in full by Feb. 14.

On May 5, council heard that the conditions had been met and councillors waiving late fees that would have totalled about $585,000 combined, and the fees were officially written off by order of council.

County tax dates

Last fall the potential of a large number of tax accounts going into default this year led county councillors to move up a tax collection day in 2020, but now they will push back penalties in light of the financial ramifications of the coronavirus.

That means that taxes are still due on June 30 this year – about four months sooner than the previous mid-November deadline. But by special resolution passed by council last month means penalties on unpaid amounts won’t be applied until Dec. 1.

At that time, a 7.5 per cent charge would be levied on amounts still owed at that time.