The mill rate bylaws for 2014 have received final passage at City Hall in North Battleford, clearing the way for taxes to be prepared and notices mailed to property owners in the coming days.
Third reading for the bylaw to establish mill rate factors, as well as the bylaw that authorizes levying of the tax rate as well as establishing a minimum tax and base tax, was passed at council Monday.
Also passed unanimously was a bylaw to establish the manner of collection of and application of penalties on current tax levies.
That bylaw was introduced based on advice from office manager/city assessor Gail Adams who requested the penalty on the current levy be postponed to Aug. 1, due to the delay in passing the taxation bylaws from the May 12 meeting.
The mill rate bylaws were introduced on that date, but passage was delayed to the May 26 meeting when Councillor Ryan Bater refused to give unanimous consent to proceeding to third reading that evening.
Bater did, however, vote in favour of both mill rate bylaws along with the rest of council Monday.
The Aug. 1 date allows taxpayers a period of six weeks to pay their 2014 levy without being penalized, according to Adams. Adams also indicated in a memo that the time frame for running tax calculations and mailing of notices would be as follows: May 29 for calculations, June 2 for printing after the penalty is applied to arrears and June 6 for mailing.
Once mailing is complete, the City plans to advertise that notices have been mailed and that the penalty date is Aug. 1.
