Realtors call for assessment increase caps

News 94.1 reports that the New Brunswick Real Estate Association wants the government to cap annual increases in property tax assessments, to allow for better budgeting and less uncertainty.

I think caps could only be acceptable public policy if the gulfs that exist between some property assessments and actual value are corrected.  It’s not reasonable to cap every property assessment, when some are assessed for as little as 1/3 of actual value.

I would prefer a policy where total property taxes collected had a cap in increases.  That way if assessments should go up (say there was a major upswing in property values), tax rates would be adjusted to accommodate this change.