(Quebec) Quebec has decided to limit to between 2% and 3% on average the increase in the school tax account which was going to be salty for some this year. It will pay $173 million to school service centers to make up for the shortfall.
Posted at 2:34 p.m.
Finance Minister Eric Girard made the announcement on Wednesday after the weekly cabinet meeting. He sees it as a way of “helping Quebecers better cope with the rising cost of living”.
Concretely, the school tax rate, which the Legault government made unique across Quebec at the start of its mandate, will be reduced from $0.1054 to $0.1024 per $100 of assessment. This decision “will limit the increase in the tax bill to a level of 2% to 3% on average”, according to Quebec.
The single rate is modified each year according to the needs of the school service centers and the variation in property values. If the government did not lower the tax rate this year, “certain taxpayers would have suffered an average increase of 17% in their school tax bill due in particular to the significant increase in needs in the education sector following the pandemic,” said the Minister of Finance.