TAXING NEW BRUNSWICK: Excerpt 1 – intro

Official on-line launch!

This is Excerpt 1 in a series of excerpts from my new book (available on Amazon by clicking the title), TAXING NEW BRUNSWICK: An Insider’s Guide to Successfully Challenging Your NB Property Assessment

NB politicians will hate this book

Even though New Brunswick politicians will hate it, this is a book I simply HAD to write.

But I had to quit my job before I could do it, since there was no way I would be allowed to write it while still working for the government.

I worked for Service New Brunswick’s Property Assessment Services for three-and-a-half years, during a time when an already-flawed assessment and taxation system was completely overwhelmed by an unprecedented skyrocketing real estate market.

After over 16 years in private appraisal practice in Alberta, learning to deal with agitated taxpayers within the context of outdated and often-misunderstood legislation was entirely new to me and I can’t say that I enjoyed that aspect of the job very much.

In fact, I hated those times of year when property owners or tax agents challenging assessments was at the forefront.

I liked the people I worked with, I liked being out and about physically inspecting properties, and I liked the actual valuation process.

But I didn’t like being thought of as responsible for people’s increased taxes while the politicians, who are the people who actually set the tax rates, got off scot-free and often themselves cast aspersions on the assessors when people brought their tax concerns to politicians’ attention.

Only so much a person can do at the bottom of the pecking order

Lowly me, in the public service pecking order, wasn’t going to effect any change in that regard, so I decided to move on and tell my story.

I gave up a stable job with benefits, a pension, and steady, reasonable pay (as my immigrant parents spin in their graves) in exchange for the freedom to speak freely about what needs to change and to help the average homeowner or small-property landlord understand and navigate the system successfully on his or her own.

So I’m an insider. Or at least I was.

And what’s more, there is absolutely nothing written on how best to navigate the assessment and tax system in New Brunswick, neither in books by non-government people nor anywhere on the Government of New Brunswick website – not in any comprehensive “here’s how to do this” way, anyway.

Which is why this is a book that cried out to be written.

I’ve seen property valuation from all angles

I saw property valuation from all angles in Alberta for 17 years – in my own private fee appraisal practice, as a member of an area assessment review board, and even as an elected municipal official.

I obtained my Canadian Residential Appraiser (CRA) designation in 2005 and later my Accredited Appraiser, Canadian Institute (AACI, P. App.) designation from the Appraisal Institute of Canada in 2011 (now retired). The latter is the most senior designation an appraiser can achieve in Canada.

What those fancy letters actually mean, though, is that I’ve seen literally thousands of properties of every type, both inside and out, either with my own eyes or through the eyes of the several candidates whom I mentored and supervised in private practice over the years.

As one American insurance commercial used to say, ‘We know a thing or two because we’ve seen a thing or two.’

My intention here is to share the ‘thing or two’ that I’ve seen so you can use that information to your advantage. I strongly believe that better-informed and better-prepared citizen-taxpayers, even in the face of a deeply flawed assessment and taxation system, make for a better New Brunswick.

Politicians occasionally talk about changing the system, but I’ll believe it when I see it. In the meantime, we property owners need to make the best of what we’ve got.

New Brunswick is my home

This is where I live (my wife grew up here and we have family throughout the province) and where I will make my home for the rest of my days, so I want to do my own small part in making it the best place it can be.

Writing this book is my way of doing exactly that.

Excerpts from TAXING NEW BRUNSWICK

More excerpts coming soon!

Series: A Blueprint for a New Assessment & Taxation Regime in NB

Other articles on assessment & taxation

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