Changes to industrial property assessment coming in 2025

To assess regulated property in Alberta, the Government of Alberta uses Assessment Year Modifiers (AYMs) to make annual adjustments to the costs used to determine industrial assessments. These modifiers were historically based on cost studies conducted by a consultant using proprietary data and approved by the Minister of Municipal Affairs.

Beginning in 2025, a new methodology will be in place using a combination of four publicly available indices from Statistics Canada. This new statistical approach will be incorporated into the 2024 Minister’s Guidelines for Regulated Property for the 2025 taxation year.

ABmunis supports the provincial government’s new approach as it will create more consistency, improve transparency, and minimize the risk of political influence on regulated assessment values.

Background

We communicated how the Government of Alberta is currently undertaking a multi-year review of Alberta’s assessment system for regulated properties at this year's Summer Municipal Leaders' Caucus sessions. Regulated properties include railway lines, wells, pipelines, electrical power, telecommunications, and machinery and equipment.

Alberta Municipalities is one of more than 20 stakeholders on the Assessment Model Review (AMR) Steering Committee that will make recommendations to the provincial government regarding changes to policy and updates to regulated assessment models. This is needed because the current system and base costs have not been updated since 2005 and may not reflect technological advances and cost adjustments over the last twenty years.

The AMR Steering Committee reviewed foundation principles and some policies including the approach to AYMs in 2024. AYMs are announced to municipalities annually, documenting the percentage change that will apply to costs used in the assessment of railway lines, wells, pipelines, electrical power, telecommunications, and machinery and equipment.

Despite the AMR Steering Committee’s approval of the new AYM methodology, further work on AYMs is still needed to confirm that the formula weightings used in the AYM formula adequately represent the weighting of costs by property type. This will be determined in the next one-to-three years as the assessment model review focuses on the assessment model for each regulated property type.

For more information, send an email to either ma.amr [at] gov.ab.ca (Alberta Municipal Affairs) or advocacy [at] abmunis.ca (ABmunis).