2024 Budget: Education Property Taxes

The spring bidding wars have begun in earnest in some areas it seems. If a person is paying more for a home, they may have an extra cost coming in 2025, depending…

Budget 2024-Education property taxes.

In Manitoba, when a person receives their property tax bill, it is divided into two parts; in gross amounts, half(ish) is for property tax, assessed by the municipality and that half revenue goes to them, half(ish) is for education taxes, assessed by the local school board, and that revenue goes to them.

 As we have discussed before Manitoba is a bit unique in Canada in that we fund a higher proportion of our education system through property taxes. Historically, Manitoba is not the only province to collect education taxes as part of property taxes, but over the last decades the amount Manitoba collects from homeowners is quite a bit higher than elsewhere in Canada. This has resulted in Manitoba as having a reputation as a very high property tax jurisdiction, compared to elsewhere in the nation. Most folks seem to agree this is not a great way to fund education.

 Provinces that fund education more through general taxation seem to have better learning results than property education tax jurisdictions. To combat this, governments of late have recognized the issue and began rebating the property tax amounts assessed by the local school board some years ago.

 The previous Provincial government installed a program where all homeowners were rebated 50% of their current education property tax bill and added on a $350.00 property tax credit, deductible against their general provincial taxes.

 The new provincial government has changed this with their last budget and now will be scrapping the previous plan and replacing it with their new plan in 2025. The new plan gives everyone who has a principal residence a straight $1,500.00 rebate on their education property taxes. There is some vigorous debate as to who wins and who loses under the new plan versus the old one, but at this stage is looks (maybe) like anyone with a home assessed at $437,000.00 or more will pay more in education property taxes and anyone with a home assessed at less than that, will pay less. The further the assessed value of the home is from $437,000.00, the more, or less, the owner will pay.

 For 2024, the old system still applies, but the old rebate cheques will not be mailed out, it will just be reduced on the actual tax notice.

Gord