One week in…
It has been over a week, but they’ve finally been talking about our very broken property assessment and tax system in the 2024 New Brunswick election campaign.
Late this past week, the NB Liberal leader, Susan Holt, had a lot to say, the PCNB leader, Blaine Higgs, had a little bit to say in response, and the Green Party NB leader, David Coon, didn’t have anything to say at all, although he did earlier on.
NB Liberals: Broken system
According to an article in the Telegraph-Journal, the NB Liberals are promising a complete overhaul of what Ms. Holt calls New Brunswick’s “broken” property system (gee, wish I’d said that…), with the idea of making assessments “more predictable and fairer to homeowners.”
If elected, she would want her government to do it all, “…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.”
This comprehensive approach is laudable indeed; I’ve argued for a couple of years now that the system as a whole is very broken. This is primarily because of the incestuous legislative relationship between assessments and taxes (taxes do not have to increase just because assessments do, but they usually do) but for other reasons as well.
And, because there are fault lines throughout the system, tinkering is not the answer, so she is right that it needs a complete reno.
As always, though, the devil will be in the details. This the NB Liberals have not yet worked these out, save for a vague party policy resolution back in February that calls for a panel of experts to devise a reform plan. Ms. Holt pledged to implement this overhaul, if elected, by the end of 2025 to be in place for the January 2026 assessment notices. But I wonder: is that timeline too ambitious?
May well be, but at least the Libs are thinking big on this.
PCNB: system not broken – tinkering will fix it
PCNB leader, Blaine Higgs, unsurprisingly cast aspersions on Ms. Holt’s comprehensive plan, saying that there’s nothing really broken with assessments and that tinkering with tax rates will address systemic problems all by itself. He said, “People aren’t questioning their property value, they’re questioning the rate associated with the property value.”
He’s right, but only partly. It’s true that people are really more concerned about their taxes than they are about their assessments but there are so many issues with how the two are intertwined that it’s impossible to fix one without the other.
The most problematic of these is that assessments are not legally required to be equitable. In other words, two similar properties can be assessed very differently, which undermines confidence in the system. If your neighbour, living in the same type of property, is paying less tax because of assessment inequity, playing around with the tax rates alone isn’t going to fix this.
Also broken are: the use of the confusing Spike Protection Mechanism (SPM); the municipalities blaming tax increases on increased assessments (which is a tax increase by stealth, as far as I’m concerned); and the Province issuing assessment notices instead of the individual municipalities.
It’s all fine for Mr. Higgs to say that that the system isn’t as broken as the NB Libs say it is. However, if tinkering were all that would be required, one wonders why the PCs haven’t already done this anytime since they were first elected in 2018.
Green Party NB: nothing comprehensive yet
David Coon’s Greens hasn’t come out with anything comprehensive yet, not passing judgement anywhere that I’ve seen as to whether the NB property system is generally fine as it is or as broken as I (and Ms. Holt) believe it to be.
However, Mr. Coon has stated that he’s in favour of transferring the lion’s share of industrial tax to the municipalities and has spoken in favour of reduced property taxes for landlords with lower rents. Interesting, but no details in either case.
Perhaps the Greens will roll out other policy planks having to do with assessment and taxation sometime before voting day on October 21 – people considering voting for them will certainly want and expect that.
We await further word...
So that’s what we have so far in the 2024 NB election campaign. Our broken assessment and taxation system is by no means the only important campaign issue but fair, stable, and sufficient provincial revenue streams are the basis of all the other issues being discussed.
If the comments on some of my social media posts are any indication, there is a lot of anger, distrust, and misunderstanding out there, which all three parties would be wise to acknowledge and address.
Will we hear more, and will future pronouncements be more detailed and comprehensive than what we’ve heard so far?
The beleaguered NB taxpayer can only hope.
Disclaimer
I have no ties whatsoever to any of the parties running in the 2024 NB election. Any positive or negative observations in the commentary above should not be construed as support or non-support of the party in question. My sole objective is to convey my thoughts on this particular policy area.
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