City-provincial 'misalignment' on property tax collection leads monthly Winnipeg bills to jump 50% in January
City finance chair, provincial finance minister trade blame over Ping-Ponging TIPP payments
Most Winnipeg homeowners will see their monthly property tax bills rise about 50 per cent in January due to a misalignment of city and provincial taxation efforts that has elected officials pointing fingers at each other.
In 2025, a flat $1,500 rebate on provincial property taxes will be applied to properties across Manitoba instead of the 50 per cent rebate on education taxes that was applied to the same properties in 2024.
While this change will only result in higher annual provincial property taxes for the owners of more valuable homes, virtually all Winnipeg property owners will wind up with larger monthly Tax Instalment Payment Plan charges, beginning in January.
This is because the entirety of the 2024 provincial tax rebate was applied during the last half of this year, leading monthly TIPP payments from July to December to be far lower than they were from January to June.
The application of the new rebate over all 12 months of 2025 will result in those monthly payments bouncing their way back up by roughly 50 per cent.
Many Winnipeggers learned of the fluctuation on Thursday, when the city issued warning emails to tens of thousands of property owners.
"I think it's ridiculous. You can't tell people with two weeks to go [in 2024] that they have to completely change their budget for the next year ahead. People aren't prepared for that," said Lori Penner, who owns what she describes as a larger-than-average home in southwest Winnipeg.
"They had to have known that this was coming and how can you not prepare people, in simple language, to make them understand what's going on?"
The delay in notification was due in part to the Canada Post mail strike, said Tim Austin, the director of Winnipeg's assessment and taxation department.
"In a normal, non-Canada Post strike year, we would send out the TIPP letters at the start of December to advise people what their Jan. 1 payment would be. This year, it's been more challenging," Austin said Thursday at City Hall.
He said his department has those letters ready to mail out but does not have the means to deliver them. There are approximately 240,000 parcels of land in Winnipeg and 136,000 separate property owners, he said.
There are other factors adding to the confusion over property taxes in Winnipeg next year.
Jan. 1 also marks the start of city-wide property reassessment in Winnipeg that will result in the owners of properties whose city-assessed values increased by more than the city-wide average of 9.5 per cent over the past two years shouldering a greater share of the municipal tax burden.
Austin said the new monthly TIPP payments that begin in January also take a 3.5 per cent municipal property tax increase into account.
While Mayor Scott Gillingham has proposed an even higher increase for next year — 5.95 per cent — council won't vote on that measure until the 2025 budget is debated in January.
The city won't begin to apply a larger municipal tax hike or larger-than-expected school board tax hikes until July 1, leading to even larger TIPP payments for most Winnipeggers later in the year.
Austin said this confluence of events is bound to confuse even savvy property owners.
"It's always a concern. We try our best to educate property owners as much as we can so their concerns are mitigated and they understand what we're trying to do," he said.
What most Winnipeggers can expect in the short run is a 50-per-cent TIPP payment hike, meaning a property owner whose monthly bill was $200 during the first six months of the year and then dropped to $100 during the final six months of 2024 can expect to pay $150 a month, beginning in January.
Coun. Jeff Browaty, city council's finance chair, said Winnipeg property owners ought to look at their January 2024 TIPP payment in comparison to their January 2025 payment.
"Most people didn't really notice when the amount went down and they certainly didn't complain when the payments went down in July," Browaty said Thursday at City Hall.
"Because of the way the province handled this, everyone's going to go up … in January. It has nothing to do with the city and this budget that's just been introduced. It has not passed. It's not set in stone yet. It hasn't been voted on."
Manitoba Finance Minister Adrien Sala, meanwhile, suggested the city had ample time to prepare for the new $1,500 provincial property tax rebate.
"We announced the measure on April 2, when we released our budget," Sala said Thursday in a telephone interview.
"I think here what we're seeing is some misalignment between our calendar years, as the province and the city."
Penner, the homeowner, said she has complained of the short notice to both her city councillor and provincial NDP MLA.
She said while she herself lives a relatively privileged life, the 50 per cent increase will affect most property owners, including those who do not.
"The big thing to me is to allow people to plan for their lives and to budget," Penner said. "It seems to me somebody dropped the ball."
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