They're here .... City Tax Bills begin to arrive in local mailboxes

With the budget process complete, all that's left to do is collect the taxes and allocate the revenues to the proper accounts.

And towards the first step in that process, the city's notification of taxpayers contribution to the cause is arriving in mail boxes across the city this week.

The annual ritual of City of Prince Rupert Tax Notices making their way to households is underway, providing for a small increase for some, a little larger for others, as they look to their tax load for this year.

The budget process which started in early 2015, came to an end in April as Council voted to approve the financial blue print for the year, providing for an increase of 2 per cent to the mill rate for the year.

Included in your tax package this year, is information related to how our tax dollars are spent, including a graph that highlights which departments receive the highest allocation, with RCMP services and the Fire Department making up 41 percent of all tax dollars collected.

Civic Operations and Roads take a further chunk of the revenue received at 23 per cent. The remainder is divided up into smaller increments to a number of other departments.

You can also review the breakdown on taxation between School District, the Municipality of Prince Rupert and Regional bodies such as Regional District, the Hospital and BC Assessment.

Also included in that information sheet is information on how to pay the taxes claim the Home Owner Grant or or seek BC Government Property Tax Deferment. The City has also provided information on how to claim the Home Owners Grant online (see here)

Payment information for the
2015 Tax bills

Breakdown on where your
tax dollars are allocated

The City has also provided a paper copy of the recent Spring Update from Prince Rupert City Council, which outlined the process that Council has used to put in place not only Budget items for 2015, but their planning for Major projects initiatives.

You can review that document here, it was released to the public last week prior to the May 11th Council session, the City Manager and Mayor also offered up discussion on the Spring update during the course of that meeting.

As part of the home package, the City also notes that information questionnaires will soon be circulating throughout the community

With the City seeking to obtain baseline data to assist civic officials in predicting the impact that major projects in the area may have.

The outlines in their mailing of this week that they are looking to use the data as part of their process in community planning, in the event of an economic boom.

Payment of taxes is due by 4:30 PM on July 2nd, 2015

For more items related to taxation issues see our running archive here, for more background on Discussions at City Council can be found here.

Cross posted from the North Coast Review