School taxes about to hit farmers hard
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- Published on Thursday, May 16, 2013
By: Ken Waddell
myWestman.ca
The recent Government of Manitoba budget -- if it’s passed -- will impact Manitoba farmers very hard. Rebates for education taxes on farmland have been increasing and are now up to 80 per cent.
The government had promised they would take education taxes off farmland entirely but have not reached that goal. The new proposal in the 2013 budget calls for an 80 per cent rebate on farmland but with the value capped at $5,000.
With the increase in the assessed value of farmland, and with many farms being quite large, education tax bills can be far higher than the proposed cap of $5,000. There are reports that some farmers will have an increased tax bill in excess of $50,000.
The government will also remove the tax rebate entirely on land owned by out of province residents. In cases where the non-resident owners lease or rent the land to Manitoba based farmers, the rent may well go up to compensate. The government is also shortening the time period in which a farmer can apply for a rebate from three years to 90 days.
Doug Chorney, Keystone Agricultural Producers president, says, “The government plans to raise over $6 million through the rebate changes.”
The cap is expected to raise about $3 million, removing the rebate for non-resident owners will raise another $3 million and shortening the deadline for application is expected to garner some savings as well. That last point, shortening the deadline, seems to be a bit of a sneaky move in the eyes of the farmers.
Agassiz MLA Stu Briese is upset about the rebate changes and he has always said that the way the rebates have been handled has been done wrong all along.
“There should never have been a need for rebate, the money shouldn’t have been charged in the first place,” said Briese.
He contends that collecting the money and then rebating the money, rather than removing it from the owner’s property taxes is just another way to create more unionized government jobs.
Chorney said, “KAP wants a well-funded education system and 60 per cent of education costs aren’t based on taxes already.”
KAP contends that education should be funded by everyone from general revenues and not on the backs of farmland owners.
“Some young farmers, who are just taking over the farms, will be impacted negatively to the tune of $10,000 or more and that’s a significant hit for a young farmer," Chorney concluded.
