Taxpayers in Quesnel can expect a 2.6% increase in their municipal taxes this year.
City Council unanimously gave the first three readings to a tax requisition of $22,128,153 at Tuesday (April 21) night’s meeting.
Director of Finance Kari Bolton went over what that meant to the average taxpayer.
“For the municipal portion of their tax bill the average house is going to see an increase of $36.13, so a 2.6% increase. You’ll see the mill rate has gone down slightly because of the increased assessments but that was offset slightly by the increase in taxes.”
Bolton also went over the other tax rates that people will be paying.
“We also have the rates from all the other taxing authorities like the Cariboo Regional District, school tax, all of that. So for the average homeowner who has a house valued at 370 thousand, their taxes will go up approximately 122 dollars in 2026.”
Getting back to the municipal portion of the tax bill, Councillor Mitch Vik, and the Chair of the Financial Sustainability and Audit Committee, said the document was the culmination of months and months of work to get the increase down to this level.
“It was a challenging year. We are faced with severe obstacles in international markets for our heavy industry which are a significant contributor to our tax base, and I really want to extend my gratitude to the members of the committee who put lots of hours into debating and contemplating hard choices. And I also want to extend my gratitude and thanks to staff who we sent back to the well a few times to try and come up with strategies to minimize our stress that comes in the form of tax increases, especially in this sensitive year, so I want to thank staff and the committee for what I think was a very hard fought result here.”
Residential ratepayers will see an increase of $9.76 per $100,000 worth of assessment, while a commercial business will see on average an increase of $40.79 per 100,000.
Major industry, which pays more than half of municipal tax bill, will actually see a decrease this year of $51.64 per 100 thousand.
