Penalties for late property tax payments slashed again this year
The city will again reduce penalties for Calgarians who miss the property tax payment deadline.
City council is also exploring a tax deferral for businesses hit hard by the COVID -19 pandemic, such as hotels, nightclubs and gyms.
Last year, in the early days of the pandemic, council voted to extend the tax payment deadline to Sept. 30. It also approved rolling back the costs that add up for businesses and homeowners that don't pay on time.
Typically, missing the June 30 tax due date comes with a seven-per-cent penalty. If the payment still hasn't arrived three months after that, another seven-per-cent charge gets added on top. In 2020, the penalties were applied only on Oct. 1, and council cut them in half.
This year will follow the same scenario: a 3.5-per-cent penalty for missing the first summer deadline, and no additional penalty after that. The city also won't roll out additional charges for unpaid 2021 taxes until at least March 2022.
Mayor Naheed Nenshi said council is doing what it can to give Calgarians a break if they absolutely can't afford their tax bill.
City chief financial officer Carla Male said that while many people took advantage of the opportunity to defer their property taxes last year, they managed to collect “substantially more” than they initially expected when they started the program.
“We know times continue to be difficult for some taxpayers in particular, and we are offering the program again this year,” Male said.
Reducing late penalties will cost the city about $5 million, between lost investment income and penalty revenue it would have typically collected.
Council's finance committee will talk about possibilities for further tax deferral for specific businesses later this month.
Nenshi said many businesses have been hurt during the pandemic, but some have been “knocked out,” and council needs to discuss how to further support them.
“Nightclubs — there aren't very many in Calgary, but they have been closed since last March,” he said. “Fitness facilities have been closed and reopened, and they can't do curbside pickup. But the biggest ones are hotels. Hotels are sitting at something like nine-percent occupancy right now.”