Tammy Burrell obtained the 2025 property tax bill for his rural Salisbury home earlier this month and, as he feared, had increased to $ 1,309.
It is lower than the typical amounts of the property tax in the houses in the cities of New Brunswick, but for the Burrell aware of the costs, which lives and works in a rural area to save money, the amount is 59 percent more than what I was paying three years ago.
It is a great jump, and the increase of $ 486 has been exerting real pressure on the thin domestic budget of Razor de Burrell.
“I live a very basic life,” Burrell said in an interview.
“I don’t drink, I don’t smoke. I can’t afford to leave and eat. I got rid of my cable television because I couldn’t pay that anymore,” he said.
“Every penny that I have is going to pay bills, and these property taxes continue to rise and upload.”
More than 400,000 property taxes were sent by mail at New Brunswick earlier this month and for the third consecutive year, some of the highest tax increases were delivered to rural housing owners.
Burrell lives in an area that used to be the Coverdale Local Service District, in Southeast New Brunswick. It was among more than 200 rural areas of New Brunswick divided by the province in January 2023 and was merged with existing municipalities, or in some cases join together, in new larger rural districts.
The changes reduced the number of local government entities in New Brunswick from 340 to 89 and, although some financial changes were expected, the risk of large tax increases in some rural owners was not something that the Government stood out.
A white document issued in 2021 that announced for the first time the proposed reforms recognized that “increases or decreases in tax rates will result from restructuring”, but in the case of increases, he said they would “eliminate themselves to mitigate the impact to the owners of the properties.”
New Brunswick issued more than 400,000 property taxes in March, and for the third consecutive year, some of the highest tax increases have gone to rural housing owners in recently amalgamated communities. The increase in evaluations and the increase in tax rates have some owners who pay 60 percent more taxes on their homes than three years ago.
The province finally established a limit of increases in tax rates that could be imposed on the owners of rural properties after a fusion of communities of five cents per $ 100 of the value evaluated of a property per year.
But there were exceptions to that limit and many rural residents soon experienced increases in tax rates above that amount, even when property evaluations in their homes also increased.
In Hampton, residents of the former Norton Local Services District have increased their tax rates by more than 5 cents per $ 100 of the value evaluated in each of the last three years.
That, combined with large evaluation increases in houses in the area, have several former Norton residents who pay 69 percent more property tax this year three years ago, including a 15 percent increase in this year’s bill.
In Nerepis, now part of the city of Grand Bay-Westfield, the increase in property evaluations and the highest tax rates have raised the tax invoices more than 50 percent since the forced fusion, including 16 percent this year.
And in Harvey, several residents in the Longs Creek area that used to be part of the KingsClear Local Services District received property tax bills this month that are 62 percent higher than three years ago.
This includes an increase in property taxes this year of 26 percent, partially fed by evaluation increases and partly for an increase of 13.4 cents per $ 100 of value evaluated in the property tax rate.
Richard Corey is the mayor of Harvey and says that the increase in the “significant” tax rate in the old KingsClear properties this year it was required that the residents pay their fair part of the police, the fire, the collection of garbage and other services.
“That was a large part of the reform of the municipal government, Corey said.” People did not pay for all the services they received and the agreement was that people will now pay. “
Corey said the province was consulted on whether Harvey needed to gradually increase property taxes on her former Kingsclear residents, but said that approval was granted to do so this year at once.
“The Government said it can make that decision if you wish,” Corey said.
A request was not granted to the New Brunswick Local Government Department for an interview about the size of property taxes that are experienced in many rural areas.
However, in a statement, department spokeswoman Kelly Cormier said that the limits established to protect the rural areas that are absorbed in a municipality of the rapid tax increases were a temporary measure that has expired in some places.
“When a local government has finished its transition, the council can adjust the rates as they seem better,” Cormier wrote.
In the case of Burrell, he has experienced two increases in tax rates so far, one related to the municipal reform and another related to a Salisbury decision to build a new Fire Room.
She already faces a 10 percent increase in her property tax bill next year and another 10 percent of the year later as the legislated protections that protect some of the evaluation increases that she has already obtained in her tax house expire.
Burrell is worried about what that could mean.
“I will be homeless in less than two years because there is not much more to cut,” he said.
