After months of grumbling and gnashing teeth, the notices are on the way and residential property owners need to pay their dreaded property taxes.
But how much more are you paying for all the municipal services combined compared to four years ago?
The answer can be found in the little-known Ministry of Housing and Municipal Affairs’ Schedule 704, Taxes and Charges on a Representative House. document. This comprehensive data compares taxes, fees and charges for every municipality in BC. It includes costs for the police, regional government, schools, hospital, BC Transit, and user fees for sewer, water, garbage, and so on.
It’s presented in one handy-dandy chart allowing you to compare all your municipal costs in neighbouring communities.
A so-called ‘representative property’ is calculated by using the assessment value of all single-family residential properties divided by the number of single-family homes. It’s considered more-or-less the average house in a municipality.
For 2022-25, eleven municipalities on the South Island saw those total taxes and various charges increase anywhere from 19.4 to 24.7% and that’s without considering the compounding impact. The outliers for this four-year period were Esquimalt at 26.3% and Langford at 34.2%.
During that same period the consumer price index (CPI) increased 15.5% in Victoria.
So, homeowners will need to decide if they are getting good value for their precious tax dollars in light of the most recent increases. The complete information for 2026 is available later this year, just nicely prior to the fall municipal election.