Areas that systemic reform of the property tax system must address
In last week’s column, I highlighted nine areas where New Brunswick’s property assessment and taxation system is found wanting. This included everything from poor communication to ignorance of best practices and a whole lot more besides.
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Fundamentally, though, there are four main topics that any new system absolutely must address for it to improve and I will cover each over the next few weeks. The four topics are:
Revenue neutrality: the system must be designed so that taxes don’t increase just because assessments do. In most places elsewhere in Canada, they don’t.
Tax rate flexibility for municipalities: currently, there are three main categories of property – residential, non-residential, and heavy industrial, with non-residential and heavy industrial tax rates limited to being between 1.4 and 1.7 times whatever the municipality sets as that year’s residential rate. As I’ll explain, this costs taxpayers money because it leaves municipalities with little room to manoeuvre.
Assessments are often far below known market values for certain property types: sometimes, there are reasons why this happens (e.g., regulated assessments for timberland). Other times, you’re just left scratching your head. This severely undermines confidence in the accuracy and fairness of the system.
Assessment equity: this is the big one (well, this and revenue neutrality). People are angered and confused why the government can assess two similar properties so differently. Legislation does not require equity and you therefore can’t challenge your assessment on that basis. Also not the way governments have designed assessment and taxation systems in most of the rest of Canada over time.
A tall order within a short time frame
Our new government has promised that it will reform the assessment and taxation system. In fact, when now-Premier Susan Holt was campaigning, she used the exact same word that I use when describing the system: “broken” – and she talked about fixing all aspects of it: “…from how we assess, to the Assessment Act, to the property tax system, the rates, the categories in place, and how those bills land at the door.”
Tall order, that.
Now that she is Premier, she has mandated two of her Ministers, namely Hon. Aaron Kennedy (Minister of Local Government and Minister responsible for Service New Brunswick) and Hon. René Legacy (Deputy Premier and Minister of Finance and Treasury Board) to “Overhaul property tax to ensure stability and fairness”, along with many other things on each Minister’s list.
“Stability and fairness” sounds great in theory but the devil is in the proverbial details, namely that they want systemic reform in place in time for the 2026 tax year. I don’t for a moment believe they can reform the system in a meaningful, comprehensive way in that short time frame.
And what’s more is that the Government has to undertake property assessment and taxation reform in conjunction with developing a new sustainable funding model for municipalities – a holdover from the local governance reform that the previous government undertook but never really completed.
Take the time to get assessment and taxation reform right
The Higgs Conservatives’ “We’ll figure out the financing later” for municipalities ranks right up there with the incoming US President having a “concept of a plan” (rather than, you know, an actual plan) for American health care, so the Holt government has its work cut out for it in coordinating these two major areas, too.
All within a year? I don’t think so.
If all the Holt Liberals going to do is a bit of fluff and window dressing with regard to assessment and taxation reform, it would be better if they did nothing at all, as tinkering will only make the problem worse. I recognize that they want to say they kept a campaign promise by rolling everything out in time for 2026 but I don’t think thoughtful New Brunswickers would hold it against them if they said they wanted to stretch the time frame a bit in order to get it right.
Why will the reform process be so difficult?
So aside from time constraints, why will the process be so difficult?
Opposition from various quarters
Well the first reason is that there will be opposition from various quarters to assessment and taxation reform, both within government and without. Municipalities will balk at revenue neutrality, industry will balk at a more refined system of tax rates (because taxes will increase in certain property segments), and assessors will undoubtedly and understandably balk at having to incorporate equity into their work because it would not be a small undertaking to get everything up to snuff in that regard.
And there are other stakeholders who’ll want to have a say as well – the government would be wise to take the time to listen to those points of view via public hearings, etc., if it wants buy-in.
Reform will require major changes in legislation
The second reason is that the government will have to make major changes in the legislation that governs assessment and taxation (to say nothing of affected legislation on the local government side). The Assessment Act and the Real Property Tax Act would each require a major re-vamp. The government would have to re-do the Assessment Act, for its part, so that the word “tax” never appears there, as assessment and taxation are two very separate things in a properly structured system. Definitely not the case now.
The Government would also have to undertake significant revision with the Real Property Tax Act so that the new legislation does not enshrine the provincial portion of tax rates therein. As I will discuss in much greater detail in subsequent columns, the Government should allow rates at the provincial level to float annually on the basis of budgetary need rather than being locked into legislation and then lowered only if the government feels like it in any given year.
Can’t fix just one part of assessment and taxation system without affecting another
In my view, an assessment and taxation revamp should also include stricter policy guidelines regarding the often-oversized role that tax agents play in getting assessment reductions on large commercial and industrial concerns so that residential taxpayers have to pick up an ever-increasing share of the tax burden.
And these are just the things on the surface that I know about, never mind those parts of the system that grind on behind the scenes. Essentially, the government can’t fix one part of the overall assessment and tax system without that change affecting other parts of it.
That’s why I argue for full systemic reform rather than cherry-picking improvements that will do more for promise-keeping optics than it will for actually ensuring “stability and fairness” when it comes to property tax.
Now’s the time for all of us to let our new MLAs know where we stand on the issue of assessments and taxes, and in no uncertain terms, armed with more than just the simplistic and fundamentally unhelpful, “My taxes are too high!”
Perhaps something you read in the columns to come will help you do just that.
This piece was first published in the Northumberland Free Press, 2024-11-23