City of Powell River Council has denied a citizen’s request for late property tax penalty relief.
At the Thursday, November 6, council meeting, Councillor Chris McNaughton read from a report prepared by Shehzad Somji, the city’s chief financial officer, which indicated that the Municipal Tax Regulation under the Community Charter states the municipality must add a penalty to the unpaid portion of city taxes after the filing deadline. McNaughton stated the penalty is not discretionary and so is applied to all taxpayer accounts that have an outstanding balance past the due date. The rationale is that this ensures equality among all taxpayers.
Somji’s report states that although the dollar amount of the penalty relief being requested by the citizen was relatively small, at $436.11, the impact of requesting the minister to write off the penalty could be significant. There were more than 500 Powell River taxpayers who were charged a late penalty.
“Council did agree we should be looking at ways of better communicating with the public to ensure there aren’t 500 taxpayers that miss the date in 2015,” McNaughton said. The aggregated total of those fines amounts to more than $120,000 accruing to the city as a result of those late payments.
Council unanimously opposed providing tax penalty relief as requested by the unidentified taxpayer.
