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STE-ADÈLE — The war over who can offer the most attractive pre-election tax cuts to woo voters heated up Tuesday with the Coalition Avenir Québec announcing plans to offer a single province-wide school tax rate.

CAQ Leader François Legault made the pledge, a major overhaul, at a news conference wrapping up a two-day party caucus meeting. The plan would mean a person living in Lac-Saint-Jean would pay the same school taxes as a Montrealer.

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The mill rate would be 10.54 cents per $100 evaluation. The new rate would apply across all boards — francophone and anglophone — in Quebec’s 17 administrative regions and cost a new CAQ government $700 million.

The tax break would be extended over four years. If you add the CAQ’s $700 million to the $670 million in school tax reductions announced by the Liberal government as part of their own scheme, the overall tax cut would be $1.37 billion.

Under the CAQ’s plan, for example, a homeowner in Saguenay—Lac-Saint-Jean with a bungalow evaluated at $280,000 would pay $520 less in school tax per year.