Time to pay up

Victoria County wants to collect overdue taxes

The Municipality of Victoria County is increasing its efforts to collect property taxes.

The county recently ramped up collections after a provincewide financial indictors indicated the county has a poor rating for uncollected taxes.

“If you still owe on your property taxes, we will be contacting you for payment,” said Leanne MacEachen, interim CAO and director of finance for Victoria County, in a news release.

“Unfortunately, we are below where we should be and where we want to be compared to other rural municipalities in the province. This has been the case for the past few years.”

The financial indictors look at how municipalities manage finances.

According to the provincial government’s Municipal Affairs website, one financial indictor rates how property taxes are collected on a timely basis. The website also states that not collecting on a timely basis can impact a municipality’s ability to provide services. If taxes are due for more than 15 months, a property can be placed on a tax sale listing and sold.

Currently, there is $2.3 million in property taxes owed in Victoria County.

The indictor designations are colour coded. Green indicates the municipality is meeting requirements, yellow means the municipality is meeting some requirements and a red designation means the municipality is not meeting requirements.

“In order to get green designation, Nova Scotia municipalities should be below 10 per cent for uncollected taxes,” said MacEachen.

“Victoria County is at 19.5 per cent on that scale, so we are not meeting this requirement and have not met it since the province began using these benchmarks in 2011, so it’s time to step up our efforts.”

Tax payments can be made through online banking or in person at the tax office with cash, cheque or debit card. Credit card payments can be made through the county’s website, https://ipn. paymentus.com/rotp/vica.

The Victoria County tax office is open from 8:30 a.m.-4 p.m., Monday to Friday. Staff can be contacted at 902-295-3231.

Victoria County’s financial indicators information can be found by visiting https://novascotia.ca/dma/finance/indicator/fci.asp?yer=2016&muns=74.

“Unfortunately, we are below where we should be and where we want to be compared to other rural municipalities in the province.” Leanne MacEachen, interim CAO, director of finance for Victoria County