EDMONTON -- With more than 400,000 tax notices mailed out on Tuesday, Edmonton property owners will soon know exactly how much the municipal tax man will be collecting from them for 2021.
This year, the city will collect over $2.2 billion from property taxes, with $482 million of that going to the province to fund education, according to the City of Edmonton's branch manager for assessment and taxation Cate Watt.
Property tax revenue funds city programs and services such as fire rescue, public transit, and road maintenance.
"For the first time in over two decades, the city has achieved a 0 per cent overall tax increase in 2021," Watt told media during an afternoon video conference.
This means if your residential property's assessed value decreased by 2.7 per cent from last year, you would owe the same in municipal taxes in 2021 as you did in 2020.
- READ MORE: City maintains property tax freeze for 2021
Watt said despite unchanged overall property taxes in Edmonton from 2020, most property owners should still see a small change in their tax bill due to fluctuations in their property's value.
Edmonton property assessments were sent out in February.
The current median value for a single-family home in Edmonton is $380,500 — a decrease in value of 2.4 per cent from the previous year.
That assessment would see a median-valued single-family homeowner in Edmonton pay $3,648 in property taxes for the year.
The 2021 tax rate in Edmonton is approximately 0.95 per cent.
HOW TO PAY
Property owners can pay their taxes to the city several ways, including by phone, online banking and mail.
In-person payments will not be accepted this year due to COVID-19.
This year the city is waiving the one-time two per cent administration fee for new applicants to Edmonton's monthly payment plan.
"To waive that admin fee, encourage more people to kind of do the monthly budgeting process," Watt told CTV News Edmonton. "It just makes this piece of your monthly budget a little bit easier."
The first six months of monthly payments are based on a property's assessed value from the previous year. Any difference is then made up for the second half of the year.
Applicants must enroll in the monthly payment plan before property taxes are due on June 30.
The city will begin charging a late penalty of five per cent to any unpaid balances beginning July 1.
