Medicine Hat, AB – The city of Medicine Hat is trying to help ease some confusion for taxpayers in the city.
Currently, 9,000 people are using the city’s “Tax Instalment Payment Plan”, which withdraws money from their bank accounts every month to cover the year’s tax bill.
The current system is estimating that bill twice a year, causing monthly payments to fluctuate throughout a 12 month period.
That’s why Dennis Egert, the commissioner of corporate services, and his department is proposing that the tax assessment only happens once a year during the summer.
“It is a change that came about from customer feedback. Customers were getting both the initial letter that came out with the tax notice and then it was updated in December. And that was causing a bit of confusion for the customers.” He said.
By doing that, each homeowner would have equal payments each month.
“What we’re purposing to do is just do one amount consistent for 12 months for the entire year. And we’ll not only clarify and simplify things for the customer. But also we’ll save some administrative costs.” Egert said.
Egert says the savings for the city would be about $18,000 in administrative costs.
Council will still need to approve the changes.
Egert says it would come into effect January 1st, 2020 and would only affect those signed up for this program.
There would be no changes for people who have their taxes blended into their mortgage payments.
