Taxes in the Municipal District of Bighorn are on the rise for 2016.
Council set the 2016 property tax rate with both residential and non-residential tax rates going up, in light of last month’s provincial government budget announcement.
Shaina Tutt, MD director of finance, told council that residential taxes would be at 3.41 per cent, and 6.9 per cent for non-residential taxes.
The total net change from 2015 for residential is .55 per cent and non-residential will change 6.34 per cent.
The MD tax base is 19.5 per cent residential and 80.5 per cent non-residential.
Councillors were quick to approve all three readings for the 2016 Tax Rate Bylaw and Supplementary Tax Rate Bylaw at the regular meeting at the beginning of the month.
The increase is a result of the province no longer funding the education property tax or other requisitions, based on equalized assessment, wrote Tutt in a decision report.
Due to this, residential and non-residential will have to make up this portion of the grants in place no longer covering.
In related news, assessed value of all the properties in the MD increased to $930,508,400 – over $12 million from 2015.
