A discussion about property tax penalties revealed that three city councillors have been late with their property taxes in the past year.
Coun. Ron Cannan brought forward a motion to the Aug. 11 meeting, calling for leniency toward residents and business owners who miss the July 1 deadline.
He suggested a two-stage approach that applies a five per cent penalty after the property tax due date and another five per cent after a grace period of a pre-determined number of days.
As council debated the motion, Councillors Maxine DeHart, Rick Webber, and Gord Lovegrove all admitted to missing the deadline either this year or last year.
Mayor Tom Days read out statistics revealing that 95 per cent of property owners paid on time, with four per cent outstanding as of July 1, which was reduced to two per cent as of late.
鈥淚 maybe shouldn't even vote on this because I'm one of those two or four per cent who neglected,鈥� Webber said. 鈥淚 forgot to file for my homeowner grant and got the full-size city bill in the mail, and so I quickly fixed the situation.鈥�
The penalty for paying taxes after the July 1 deadline is 10 per cent.
DeHart said it happened to her as well after some confusion with her husband about whether the bill was paid.
鈥淎ll of a sudden, I get this bill with the penalty. Guess what? We didn鈥檛.鈥�
Lovegrove also admitted to missing the deadline over a misunderstanding with his spouse over who was to pay their property taxes.
Council voted down the motion with only Cannan, Webber, and Lovegrove in support.
Other councillors raised concerns about the impact on staff time to manage following up with late payers and pointed to multiple options for residents to pay their taxes on time.
鈥淭he onus should not be on staff to spend extra time to basically deal with that,鈥� the mayor added.
鈥淢y concern was that I didn't get any letters on it. Nobody was really concerned about it.鈥�
Dyas added that there were three letters received by council about the issue.
Several councillors also pointed out that property taxes can be paid online and monthly before the deadline.
Cannan brought forward a similar motion, which was adopted, when he was on council in 2001.
In 2020, the council at that time eliminated the two-stage penalty due to increased postage and administrative costs, according to a staff report.
Coquitlam, Surrey, Richmond, Saanich and Langford all have a two-stage penalty system, Cannan noted.
There are approximately 62,500 properties that pay taxes to the City of 91大黄鸭 each year.
