The issue has gotten to the point where the city has assigned staff to evaluate BC Assessments’ evaluations of local properties to catch anomalies before they get to the point of being included in the city’s property taxes, according to a staff report.
In a council meeting late last year, city council heard from staff that property owners’ appeals of BC Assessment valuations of their properties had piled up to about $3.2 million by the end of September. Of that, $2.8 million had come from years prior that had just reached a decision last year.
Now, the city’s finance committee has heard a follow-up report from staff that showed the city owes well over $6.4 million, including $5.6 million from past-year appeals.
Compared to the four years prior, the refunds from 2020 are at least triple that of any other year, with the next highest coming in 2017 at under $2.1 million.
The city isn’t the only authority affected by the appeals. Another $7.8 million in refunds, including $6.5 million for the school tax, are owed to Burnaby property owners from appeal decisions last year, totalling $14.2 million.
And the city still has another $3.3 million in pending appeals, according to the finance committee report, including about $1 million from 2020 and $1.9 million from 2019.
In the report, staff outlined four concerns around the appeals process, including the number of appeals, the transparency in decisions, instability of assessment values and property valuation and use.
Over the last several years, the number of appeals in the North Fraser region has grown significantly, from 222 in 2015 to 1,263 in 2019. Last year, there were 929 appeals in the region.
Staff pointed to the Provincial Assessment Appeal Board’s (PAAB) 2019 annual report, which acknowledged the skyrocketing number of appeals without any corresponding change in resources in 20 years. Staff said the lack of necessary resources ultimately turns into a backlog.
“Tax appeals through agents that work on behalf of commercial property owners are increasing. With certain appellants there seems to be a trend of appealing a number of properties, being successful on a few and withdrawing the remaining appeals,” staff said. “Only a fulsome review by the (provincial government) on a wider scale will be able to determine if this trend stands true.”
Staff said there are instances in which BC Assessment has been made aware of anomalous assessments and has been able to fix it before it’s baked into the city’s tax bills. However, that’s not always the case, and staff said it shouldn’t be the city’s job to catch those errors early.
Staff are recommending that the mayor write a letter to the minister of finance seeking a review of the appeal process.
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