New Brunswick Minister of Finance, Greg Byrne, delivered the province’s 2010-2011 budget on December 1, 2009. While various measures to reduce income taxes were introduced by the Minister, no announcements on commodity taxes were made.
However, one announcement of note addresses the issue of increasing property taxes in the province. To combat this situation, the province will introduce a mechanism to improve accountability and transparency for both provincial and municipal property taxes.
Under this plan, when the assessment base growth exceeds the value of inflation and new construction, an adjustment factor will be used to compute lower base tax rates for both provincial and municipal property taxes.
The government estimates that taxpayers will save an estimated $12 million in provincial property tax for 2010 property tax bills. The Minister is encouraging municipalities to follow the province’s lead and, where possible, adopt the rates calculated by the accountability mechanism.
Provincial property tax rates will also be reduced for the upcoming year as follows:
- the base rate of $1.50 will be reduced to $1.4573;
- the base rate of $2.25 will be reduced to $2.1860;
- the base rate of 65 cents will be reduced to 63.15 cents; and
- the base rate of 2 cents will be reduced to 1.94 cents.
Additional information on the budget is available at the New Brunswick Department of Finance web site at:
http://www.gnb.ca/0160/budget/buddoc2010/index-e.asp.