(Dave Bedard photo)

Saskatchewan budget aims to spur ag investment

Potash, crude oil resource revenues help cut deficit

Sweetening existing tax credits on big-ticket investments, and setting up a new Crown corporation to support Indigenous investors, are among the items expected to help encourage new value-added ag projects in Saskatchewan’s latest budget. Provincial Finance Minister Donna Harpauer on Wednesday released her 2022-23 budget with $17.6 billion in expenditures on $17.2 billion in revenues, […] Read more

A vineyard at Naramata in B.C.’s Okanagan Valley. (File photo by Dave Bedard)

B.C. again waives ag income threshold for farm properties

Some farms otherwise risked property tax reclassification

British Columbia farmers who’ve taken pandemic-induced losses in farm income will be able to keep their farm properties classified as such for another tax year. The province on Monday announced that for the second year running, it will waive the minimum farm income thresholds normally required for B.C. properties to be classified as farms for […] Read more


(Dave Bedard file photo)

Manitoba’s education tax phase-out begins

Budget pledges a 25 per cent rebate cheque in 2021; existing farmland school tax rebate to be reduced

Manitoba’s latest budget follows through on a move the government telegraphed in last fall’s throne speech, by starting a phased removal of education tax on farm and residential properties. Finance Minister Scott Fielding’s budget, released Wednesday, calls for about $248 million in education tax rebates in 2021 alone for about 658,000 property owners. Owners of […] Read more

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Saskatchewan to pare school tax mill rate for farmland

EPT mill rates to rise for residential, other properties

Saskatchewan’s latest budget taps down the education property tax (EPT) mill rate it sets on farmland, while raising those mill rates on other property classes. The provincial government, in Tuesday’s budget, set the provincewide EPT mill rate on agricultural land for 2021 at 1.36, down slightly from the previous rate of 1.43. EPT mill rates […] Read more



(Lisa Guenther photo)

Taxability to rise on Saskatchewan rangeland

The percentage of value (POV) subject to property taxes will be bumped back up on Saskatchewan producers’ rangeland and pasture for the 2017 tax year. Government Relations Minister Donna Harpauer on Monday announced the POV on non-arable (range) land such as pastures will be set via regulatory amendment at 45 per cent, up from 40. […] Read more


oil derrick in a canola field

Oil bust could mean skyrocketing property taxes

Some Alberta municipalities are being hit hard as oil companies stop paying

Reading Time: 2 minutes With oil prices bottoming out around $30 a barrel, oil companies are scrambling to save money — sometimes at the expense of farmers. “Some companies are just deciding not to pay the annual rentals,” said Daryl Bennett, who represents the Action Surface Rights Association in southern Alberta. Last year, the Surface Rights Board had more […] Read more