Assessment

The process of estimating a dollar value on a property for taxation purposes. This value is used to calculate the amount of taxes that will be charged to the owner of the property.

Assessment is determined by the Village of Mannville’s assessor Wainwright Assessment Group. The Village of Mannville’s administration office is unable to make any changes to your property’s assessed value. 

Taxation

The process of applying a tax rate to a property’s assessed value to determine the taxes payable by the owner of that property.

Minimum Tax

• A municipality may levy, by Bylaw, a minimum amount of tax on each property. The minimum property tax is not a fixed surcharge – rather, it applies to a property if the calculated tax rate multiplied by the assessed value of the property is lower than the amount set as the minimum tax. 

Special Culture and Recreation Tax

• A municipality may levy, by Bylaw, a special tax to provide or construct a special service that will benefit a defined area within a municipality. Examples of special services include waterworks, sewer, boulevards, drainage ditches, dust treatment, fire protection and/or recreation services.

School Tax

• All property owners in Alberta (with some exceptions, such as non-profit organizations and seniors lodge facilities) are required to pay the provincial education property tax, based on their property’s assessed value. This tax revenue is collected by the Village of Mannville and then transferred to the Alberta Government to be placed into the Alberta School Foundation Fund. This money is then distributed among Alberta’s public and separate school boards on an equal per-student basis. 

Local Improvement Tax

• A municipality may levy, by Bylaw, a local improvement tax to fund a project that Council considers to be of greater benefit to an area of the municipality than to the whole of the municipality. The local improvement tax would apply only to those properties benefiting from a particular project, rather than every property owner within the municipality. 

Provincial Policing Tax

• In 2021, the Alberta Government elected to update the legislation and begin collecting a municipality’s policing cost share under the Policing Funding Model Regulation. A portion of the costs of frontline policing are now charged back to municipalities based on population, equalized assessment, crime severity, shadow population and detachment locations.

Tax Rate

• The tax rate is the number that is multiplied by each property’s assessed value to determine its property taxes. It is usually expressed in four (4) to six (6) decimal places such as 0.008437. Due to the number of decimal places, municipalities often communicate tax rates as mill rates.

Mill Rate

• The mill rate is achieved by multiplying the tax rate by 1,000. For example, using the number above, a tax rate of 0.008437 would be presented as 8.44 in mill rate terms. 

Relationship between Property Taxes and Assessment Values

Although one impacts the other, assessment and taxation are very different and each have a distinct and independent process. 

For ease of reference the City of Airdrie created an exemplary informational tutorial on how property assessment and taxation work together in the short video linked below. 

Combined Tax & Assessment Notice

The 2024 Combined Tax and Notice of Assessments for all property owners were mailed on Wednesday, May 1, 2024. Please ensure to check your mailbox and notify us if you believe you did not receive your notice. Failure to receive your tax notice does not preclude you from your responsibility to pay your taxes by the deadline of July 31, 2024. 

MAILED DATE: May 1, 2024

NOTICE OF ASSESSMENT DATE: May 9, 2024

DUE DATE: July 31, 2024

12% PENALTY ON OUTSTANDING BALANCES: August 1, 2024

6% PENALTY ON OUTSTANDING BALANCES: November 1, 2024

APPEAL DEADLINE: July 8, 2024

Tax Installment Plans

In accordance with Bylaw No. 2021-853 the Village of Mannville accepts pre-authorized payments by either cash, cheque, Interac, Mastercard, Visa, post dated cheques or direct debit from a property owners bank account towards annual tax levies. To be eligible for the tax installment payment plan, your account must be in good standing. This means, all prior year taxes have been paid in full prior to enrollment. 

The pre-authorized tax installment payment plan runs from January through December of each year. The amount to be withdrawn is determined as follows:

• The first six (6) months are based on the previous years’ tax levy.
• The last six (6) months are adjusted to reflect the actual remaining balance for the year upon the issuance of the tax assessment notice. 

To sign up for the pre-authorized tax installment payment plan, you must complete the following form:

Assessment Complaint Process

The assessment process establishes the value of a property in relation to other similar properties. The purpose of property assessment is to distribute property tax fairly among property owners in a municipality.

Upon receipt of the annual combined property assessment/tax form, it is important to review the property information to make sure the description of the property is accurate.

If the property information is not correct, contact the Municipality’s Assessor, whose name and contact number is recorded on the back of the notice. Discuss any problems that might affect the property’s value and find out if these problems were taken into account when the assessment was prepared. (the Assessor can re-inspect the property and correct the information if necessary.)

If the property owner and the Assessor do not reach an agreed upon valuation, the property owner has recourse, utilizing the Assessment Complaints Process to pursue further amendments.

To ensure property owners have a choice in the property assessment system, the Municipal Government Act has set out a “complaints and appeals system” for property owners who have concerns about their assessment.

Assessment complaints involve filing a complaint with the municipality’s Assessment Review Board or the Composite Assessment Review Board. The type of property the complaint is about will determine the type of Assessment Review Board that will hear your complaint.

A Local Assessment Review Board will hear complaints for residential property with:

• 3 or fewer dwelling units;
• Farmland;
• A tax notice other than a property tax notice.

A Composite Assessment Review Board will hear complaints for residential property with:

• 4 or more dwelling units, or
• any non-residential property

Assessment Review Board members and clerks are required to complete the training program approved by the Minister of Municipal Affairs.

The Village of Mannville participates in a Regional Assessment Review Board that is legislated under Regional Assessment Review Board Bylaw 2019-839.

Alberta Municipal Affairs has provided a publication on the process of filing a property assessment complaint and preparing for the hearing:

Filing a Property Assessment Complaint & Preparing for your Hearing.

Assessment Review Board

To download the Assessment Bulletin, please click the button below: