The Community
Press Telling Your Story
Volume 115, Issue 1
Wednesday, July 6, 2022
$1 Including GST
Hello, Canada!
Canada Day events were celebrated all over the county this past weekend. This young man enjoyed a horse ride at the Gymkhana event in Alliance this past Friday. More coverage inside.
Flagstaff County receives provincial credit of $711,673 to cover education requisition on delinquent oil and gas taxes Leslie Cholowsky Editor
Flagstaff County recently received approval of its Provincial Education Requisition Credit (PERC) and Designated Industrial Requisition Credit (DIRC) that included delinquent oil and gas taxes on four properties dating back as far as 2018. During its June 22 regular meeting, Council received notification from the Province that a credit of $711,673 was applied to the June 2022 Alberta School Foundation Fund requisition. Each year the Province requisitions municipalities directly for Education, and municipalities are required to add this to property tax rolls. The Province required the full ed-
ucation requisition to be paid whether or not the taxes were paid. Up until the PERC and DIRC programs were brought forward by the Province, municipalities had no remedy for recovering the education amount payable on delinquent accounts. Earlier in the year, at a Jan. 12 Council Meeting, Council heard from CAO Shelly Armstrong that municipalities can now apply for a credit on the education requisition of unpaid taxes without having to write them off altogether. Instead they can be designated as uncollectable bad debt. When PERC was first introduced, municipalities were required to write-off the tax roll altogether to
apply. Armstrong told Council that the PERC program was scheduled to expire after the 2021 tax year intake, but has been extended for two more years by the Province, with an injection of $30 million for the 2021/22 intake, and a further $15 for each of the following two years. Under the program, municipalities can apply retroactively as far back as 2015. Under the new DIRC program, even tax categories that are determined using rates set by the province, Designated Industrial, are also eligible to have the education requisition portion credited back. January’s application included four delinquent accounts, totalling well over $5.5 million dollars in un-
paid taxes from 2018 to 2021 that included an education requisition portion totalling $706,718.20. While the taxes have not been collected, the county had already paid the education requisition on the accounts to the Province. Armstrong advised Council in January that the application would also include requests for PERC and DIRC credits on tax accounts that have been written off by Council in 2021. If at any point Flagstaff County is able to recover any or all of the bad debt owed to it on any of the ‘uncollectable bad debt’ tax rolls included in the PERC and DIRC application, it will be required to repay the education portion back to the Province.