Langley City has highest remittance of commercial property tax in Metro Van. Strong business sector helping municipal services remain operating.

Unlike the provincial or federal governments, local governments are not allowed to run operating deficits. This means that there must be enough revenue to cover the costs of providing services. Because property tax, and user fees for water and sewer services, are stable, local governments are generally able to make this work. This year is different.

Property tax is due at the beginning of July for municipalities in Metro Vancouver. It is important that property taxes are paid by this date to ensure that local governments are able to pay their bills.

Not to get to into the weeds, but most local governments have limited financial capacity to bridge financing between the start of a budget year and when taxes are due. Cash flow is important.

Due to the COVID-19 state of emergency, the provincial government is allowing commercial property owners to pay their property taxes penalty-free in October (as opposed to July.)

Because local governments also collect school tax on behalf of the provincial government, the province is allowing local governments to hold on to school tax until the end of the year to ensure that the October due date for commercial property taxes does not cause cash flow issues.

Even with the help of the provincial government, many municipal financial officers were concerned that a larger number of property owners simply would not be able to pay their property tax this year.

In Metro Vancouver, the remittance of property tax has been tracked. The following table is from the agenda of the regional district’s COVID-19 Response Task Force. It shows the percentage of property tax collected as of July 8th.

Local Government	Total Collected*	Residential*	Non-Residential*
Village of Anmore	-	-	-
Village of Belcarra	95%	95%	-
Bowen Island Municipality	90%	97%	3%
District of North Vancouver	86.20%	93.60%	52.50%
Township of Langley	85%	92%	66%
City of Langley	82%	90%	72%
City of North Vancouver	79.50%	92.50%	56.80%
City of Delta	73%	79%	66%
City of New Westminster	71%	76%	60%
City of Pitt Meadows	70%	-	-
District of West Vancouver	67.40%	70.60%	20.80%
City of Surrey	61%	71%	29%
City of Maple Ridge	58%	-	-
City of Richmond	56%	-	-
City of Port Moody	55.60%	65.80%	14.01%
City of Vancouver	50.16%	31.70%	18.50%
City of Burnaby	47%	65%	35%
Village of Lions Bay	42%	-	-
City of Port Coquitlam	41.38%	47.24%	28.19%
City of White Rock	39%	39%	33%
City of Coquitlam	28%	25%	32%
Tsawwassen First Nation	19.64%	33%	0.05%

It is good to see that 90% of residential property tax and 72% of non-residential property tax has been collected in Langley City. Our community has the highest percentage of commercial property tax collected to date in Metro Vancouver. This is encouraging to see because it shows the resilience of our business sector. This high rate of remittance is important because it ensures that Langley City will not have cash flow issues; services can continue being delivered uninterrupted.

*Percentage of total property tax revenue.