The City of Trail has been forced to handle its tax recovery process for the Regional District of Kootenay Boundary in 2025, after the Ministry of Municipal Affairs wouldn’t approve plans to start the process in 2023.
A statement from the city explained that its finance team had originally wanted to use 2023’s property assessment values to figure out the tax recovery amount and have it shown separately on the 2024 tax notices.
However, the Ministry would not allow the city to use previous property values, informing the city that the recovery must be based on the current year’s assessment and included in the regular tax rate, not as a separate rate or fee.
“We will follow the Ministry’s directive and recover the 2023 outstanding taxes in 2025,” said Colin McClure, City of Trail CAO/CFO.
“The City of Trail remains committed to transparency and fairness. We appreciate the community’s patience as we resolve this outstanding issue.”
According to the city, the original shortfall was due to an error in the calculation process. This resulted in a $630,000 deficit in taxes collected on behalf of the RDKB, which the city paid for in 2023 using its General Surplus Funds.
This delay gives taxpayers an extra year before paying back the RDKB taxes, which is expected to be around $94 for the average home in Trail in 2025.
The city started sending out tax notices to property owners by mail on May 27; they are due by July 2, with late payment resulting in an automatic 10 percent penalty fee.
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