North Van property tax ‘miscalculation’ leads to overcollection: city
Posted August 8, 2023 2:51 pm.
Last Updated August 8, 2023 4:24 pm.
The City of North Vancouver says a “clerical error in the production of its 2023 tax notices” resulted in an overcollection of $75,784 in 2023 property taxes.
According to Chief Financial Officer Larry Sawrenko, the city recently identified the error, which “occurred when inputting the British Columbia Assessment Authority rate into the tax collection system.”
“The city collects property taxes for its own purposes, as well as for some other organizations in the province. The ones that we collect for other organizations, they provide us with different tax-rate bylaws and information that advises the city how much to collect on their behalf,” Sawrenko explained CityNews.
He says the wrong tax rate was put into the collection system the city uses for the BC Assessment Authority by mistake.
Ultimately, as a result, the City of North Vancouver “levied slightly too much taxes on behalf of the BC Assessment Authority.” Sawrenko says the “miscalculation” amounted to an average of an additional $1.89 per Residential property owner.
The highest impact was observed in what the city describes as Major Industry tax notices at an average of $492.02, the city adds.
“Upon detection, the error was immediately corrected and credits were applied to all affected tax accounts following thorough review,” the city explained.
Credits applied to accounts: City of North Van
Sawrenko says “fully takes ownership for this clerical error,” adding some process changes have been made to help ensure this kind of thing doesn’t happen again.
“We haven’t made an error like this in the past many decades, at least as far all of our history that we can tap into goes. So please accept our apologies for this small error,” he added.
The error is said to have affected about 0.05 per cent of the City of North Vancouver’s total tax revenue for the year.
Affected property owners will see the necessary credits applied to their accounts for the 2024 assessment.
The city says property owners don’t need to take any action but adds it is ready to assist anyone who would like “an immediate refund.”
