City’s tax assessment department deals with 77 appeals in 2022

By MEDICINE HAT NEWS on November 29, 2022.

https://www.medicinehatnews.com@MedicineHatNews

The city tax assessment department dealt with a 50 per cent increase in appeals in 2022 compared to previous years, new statistics show, though only a few proceeded to review board hearings.

Last week’s meeting of corporate services committee was provided an overview of this year’s property tax disputes dealt with since assessment notices mailed out last spring.

A total of 77 appeals were filed out of 28,000 accounts. The average over the past seven years has been 50, said division managing director Dennis Egert.

Five were related to residential accounts, 28 to multi-family properties and 44 from non-residential (commercial) assessments.

Of the total all but five were represented by tax service agencies that specialize in challenging local assessment calculations for clients.

Of the total 77 complaints, 14 were withdrawn and 60 were resolved after discussions between the parties, though no data was provided on adjustments.

Three proceeded to composite review board hearings, and were adjusted by the panel after review.

Those judgments are not yet published by Alberta Municipal Affairs, but Egert noted the changes resulted in a net loss of tax revenue for the city of $435,000 compared to initial projections.

That amount is “a little above average” for adjustments in any given year, he stated.

The city collected about $80 million in property tax in 2022.

In 2021, four separate major shopping centres challenged their assessment values at board hearings. Incomplete publicly available documents show relatively small adjustments lower.

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