REGINA: The Canadian Taxpayers Federation (CTF) is today calling on the provincial government to launch a series of public consultations on property taxes as soon as the income tax review committee has wrapped up its hearings this summer. Saskatchewan has the highest property taxes compared to property value of any province in Canada.

"We were encouraged to see the government finally agree to conduct a public review of the income tax system in our province, but they are ignoring the enormous property tax burden at their own peril," stated CTF Provincial Director Richard Truscott. "It will be a struggle to become tax competitive with other provinces in terms of income taxes, but our property taxes are even more out of whack."

"Property tax is the worst kind of tax. It is archaic, confusing, destructive, and bears little relation to the ability to pay. But more importantly for our hard-pressed farmers, property taxes represent one of their biggest fixed costs every year," said Truscott.

As the income crisis on Saskatchewan's farms has grown, so has the property tax bill for farmers, increasing by 52% since 1986, and growing by $20 million between 1994 and 1998. "If our governments really want to help farmers, they could start by cutting property taxes and leaving more money in farmers pockets in the first place," says Truscott.

He pointed out that in order to make small cuts in provincial income taxes in the past few years, the government has been off-loading the burden onto property taxes. "By failing to finance provincially-mandated cost increases, such as higher teachers salaries, the province has forced municipalities to hike property taxes," said Truscott. "The government has been playing a shell game with taxpayers. They give with the right hand, but take with the left."

The provincial government has stated that the education tax on property would only increase by $15 million in rural areas because of the changes to the property tax reassessment system back in 1996 and 1997. But according to the CTF's research, the shift in education taxes onto rural areas has been about $42 million - almost 3 times the government's figure.

The CTF has helped to set up a "Property Taxpayer Network" of activists throughout the province eager to work towards major reforms to Saskatchewan's property tax system.