Created: 2023.03.17 | Last updated: 2024.03.24
Property takes for many people, especially those on fixed income, are one of the largest expenses, with people who budget/plan ahead for a year to make sure they can pay them on time.
On Feb 21st 2023 Crossfield Alberta Canada Municipal government changed the due date for municipal taxes to be one month EARLIER than previous years. Essentially, with at most 4 months warning. If they were going to change something like this, it should have had a least a year's warning plus time to hear about it. So making the change for the 2024 taxes would have been far more fair.
This doesn't affect me personally, I'm in the rural district near it - but it seems to me that, in this year of raising inflation greater than our peers, this was as callous as the Trudeau liberals raising their salary a month from now at the same time they significantly raise taxes for the rest of us to pay their salary increase and to pay for Trudeau's woke ideas.
Crossfield municipal counselors, you should be ashamed of yourself. But the repercussions aren't mine to make, it will be up to the citizens of Crossfield to decide. Sadly, that won't be until 2025. The counselors are pulling a play out of the Elder Trudeau's playbook: do the nasty things as near the beginning of your reign as you can so there is time for people to forget.
But ... I admit, it isn't as bad as Trudeau's buddies ... when I was in China several years ago, they were bulldozing the houses near Tiananmen square to make way for Olympic buildings. I saw people scrambling to grab their belongings in front of the bulldozers. I was told "the people are happy, they are being moved to the (cold rocky - my words) coast and given new houses, they were given 6 months warning so they had lots of time to prepare." So ... I guess putting it in perspectives, the Crossfield Alberta municipal counselors aren't even in the ballpark as Beijing.
Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe I don't know the whole story (I got the story from the municipal notice that was put in everyone's mail box about a month after the decision was made ... so as far as I can tell, I'm making my opinion based on the facts as the counselors themselves decided to have it portrayed.) If you think I am, especially if you are a Crossfield Alberta Counselor - let me know, I might update this page if your responses are polite enough.
Addendum:
I have been rebuked. I was told that comparing the Crossfield Counselors to Trudeau is like Trudeau calling people traitors because they didn't agree with his definition of science (what I call "Grade 6 drama class science.) That what the Crossfield counsellors did was no where near as nasty as dozens of things that Justin Trudeau has done. I was also told that the REASON (though not reported to me on the sheet from Crossfield) was that the Alberta Government is late in making payments it was supposed to make and Crossfield was probably relying on.
OK, I admit. Comparing them to Trudeau was unfair, he is much worse than this and he is a many time repeat offender. So I withdraw that and simply say: But it still wasn't nice.
But it still seems to me, moving the deadline for payment up by 1 month at most means that their 2022/2023 year cashflow was 11 months instead of 12, so it is a ONE TIME gain of 1/12th the income in the year. If they ever go back … they will have to run 13 months on 12 month's income. And I don't know if it is legal … but they can only do this 1 month early trick a few times (May, April, March, Feb) and then they run out of year to get the money early from.
So it seems to me this is a decision that gives only a tiny one-time benefit to the town, and inconvenience, for some people terrible inconvenience, for their captive customers.