MD of Taber Council Approves 2025 Property Tax Rate Bylaw and 2025 Budget

For Immediate Release

May 2, 2025

TABER, AB — The Municipal District of Taber (MDT) gave third and final reading to the 2025 Property Tax Mill Rate Bylaw during the regular Council meeting on Tuesday, April 8, 2025.

The 2025 Property Tax Mill Rate Bylaw includes the following adjustments to the municipal mill rates: 

  • A decrease of 3.0 per cent for the residential property tax mill rate
  • A decrease of 0.61 per cent for the non-residential property tax mill rate
  • An increase of 9.0 per cent for the farmland property tax mill rate

The 2025 Final Operating Budget includes maintaining the minimum property tax payable per parcel at $40.00.

The 2025 property tax amounts are calculated based on the property tax assessment completed in 2024. The average residential property saw an assessment increase of 7.65%, the average non-residential property (commercial, industrial, and linear) saw assessment increases of 7.27%, and the average farm assessment saw no change. Although the tax rate for residential and non-residential properties has decreased, properties with a significant increase in assessment may experience an increase in their total municipal tax bill.  

For questions on your assessment, please contact Benchmark Assessment at 403-381-0535.

The 2024 Property Tax Rate Bylaw raises a total of $19.4 million, a collection increase of $1.2 million from 2024. Assessment growth this year totaled $111 million and generated an additional $925,000 in tax revenue, which equates to approximately 80% of the increase in property tax collected. Assessment growth is the new buildings, improvements, and linear assets added to the assessment roll this year.

The rates put in place by this bylaw collect the revenue required to support the approved 2025 operating and capital budgets passed late last month. The newly approved operating budget projects a $1.75 million operating budget deficit ($847,000 in 2024), which includes a non-cash expense of $4.5 million for amortization. With this, the 2025 final budget provides $3.7 million in cash from operations to be allocated to capital expenditures or transferred to reserves to fund capital infrastructure investment.

Individual properties will see varying amounts on their tax notices due to unique assessment changes from year to year. However, due to the substantial increase in the Provincial Education Requisition (increased by more than 20%), the most significant change most people will notice on their property tax notices this year is the amount required to pay to the Province. The requisition increased by more than 18% from 2024, and the MDT does not have any input in setting the amount that is collected by the province.


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Other budget highlights and notes:

  • Council has approved increased service levels for implementation in the second half of 2025, in the hamlets as well as prioritized Economic Development initiatives to facilitate the local economy.
  • MDT has once again included more than $600,000 in Contributions to Recreation Initiatives led by neighbouring municipalities and local service groups in 2025.
  • In 2025, MDT has budgeted to contribute $161,000 to local libraries.
  • The 2025 operating budget includes a 2.5% cost-of-living adjustment (COLA) to salaries and wages, merit-based performance management, and staffing allocation changes, along with various changes to the Employee Handbook.
  • In the Province of Alberta’s 2025 budget, they increased the share that municipalities contribute to the provincial education budget. This change has increased the Education Requisition that the MDT is required to collect on behalf of the province by more than 18%. The MDT does not determine how much is to be collected for the school tax, nor does it retain any of the funds for municipal operations. All school tax requisition funds are remitted to the Province.
  • The Province of Alberta has downloaded costs of frontline RCMP officers to municipalities using the Provincial Police Funding Model. The Provincial Police Funding Model will cost MDT residents $550,000 in 2025 without seeing an increased level of service.
  • The budget for Uncollectible Taxes remains at $700,000. This amount relates directly to a select few oil and gas linear properties that have failed to pay taxes, and the municipality will likely not be able to recover the municipal revenue because the company is insolvent or under creditor protection.

Links:

Small Business Subclass

The Small Business Subclass program is available to all small business properties (other than designated industrial properties) that are owned or leased by a business that has fewer than 50 full-time employees. The Subclass offers up to 25 per cent in tax savings compared to other non-residential properties. The deadline to register is February 15th of the assessment year to be applied to the following tax year. An application must be submitted annually.

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