Designated Industrial Property Requisition Tax Rate

Alberta Municipal Affairs has taken over the assessment of properties classified as designated industrial property through amendments to the Municipal Government Act. The purpose of this change was to ensure that a consistent and fair assessment be done throughout the Province from one assessing district to another. To cover the cost of the assessment process, the province added Section 359.3 to the Municipal Government Act requiring municipalities to collect a requisition from designated industrial property owners and forward it to the province.

While the centralization of industrial assessment is a good change in general, the requirement for municipalities to track, collect, and forward the requisition to the province is problematic. Given the small number of designated industrial properties in some communities, the administrative cost can be significantly higher than the entire amount collected through the requisition. This is particularly the case in small communities.

The Town of Penhold is to collect $158.00 for 2018 requisition. The time and expense for collection of the requisition over the past year was anticipated to be more than $1,100 to deliver this service. This expense will come down year over year. However, it appears that the cost will always exceed the revenue intake.

The requirement to collect the requisition is inefficient and unnecessary. Municipalities should have the option to provide the province with the value of the requisition through other means. For example, it may be a financially prudent decision to simply pay the province the value of the requisition out of general revenues rather than pay a higher amount to administer the requisition. Section 359 of the Municipal Government Act should be amended to enable greater flexibility for municipalities to determine the best option for covering the cost of designated industrial property assessment.