Iqaluit property owners owe $3.1M in unpaid taxes

The owners of 72 homes and businesses in Iqaluit now owe a total of $3,127,144 to city hall in unpaid property tax and interest that has accumulated on the debt.

That's double the $1.5 million Iqaluit property owners owed in 2009, and nearly the same amount currently owed in property tax arrears for the rest of Nunavut combined.

This year's list, published recently in this newspaper ad, includes people who owe more than $500 in property tax arrears and has 72 properties on it.

John Mabberi-Mudonyi, director of corporate services for the City of Iqaluit, says his two-person department is not equipped to collect on outstanding property tax.

"We publish this [list], first of all because it is a requirement of the act," he said.

"As to whether it makes people come and pay their taxes, I have no answer for that one. But again we just follow what the act dictates to us and that's why we keep doing this every year."

Mabberi-Mudonyi said new policies and powers when it comes to collecting property tax may be coming this fall, all part of municipal restructuring. 

Until then he is appealing to Iqaluit residents' sense of community to encourage them to pay what the city says they owe. 

"I mean you drive around town and you see how things are," he said. 

"We need money to fix this aging infrastructure and collecting the $3 million would go a long way to help us fix some of the problems we have."

Yellowknife's arrears at $200,000

Meanwhile the Northwest Territories' capital of Yellowknife, with a population nearly triple that of Iqaluit, had total property tax arrears of $200,000 in 2014.

Yellowknife's manager of budgeting and taxation Christine Siu says the city has a clear and effective collection process.

"There is a two-year cycle," she said. "First year, all the parties will get notice about tax arrears and they are given a deadline to pay the outstanding.

"And then, second year, you follow a similar process with letters and an ad in the newspaper and then finally the property will be auctioned if it's not paid for."

This summer the City of Yellowknife auctioned off two houses for tax arrears. 

Siu said the city's collection process is in accordance with the Northwest Territories Property Assessment and Taxation Act.

It formed the basis for Nunavut's property taxation act.