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Small businesses hit hard by Calgary’s downtown tax shift problem likely won’t receive any financial assistance from the city in 2019 after council failed to reach consensus on a solution to tackle the problem.

At Monday’s meeting, council voted 12-3 to kill the only remaining proposal on the table to provide assistance this year to small businesses suffering through the economic downturn. The small business grant program would have seen $35.9 million distributed in grants to eligible businesses with fewer than 20 employees.

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Council has also run out of time to conduct a third round of the phased tax relief program that was used in 2017 and 2018 to keep a cap on tax increases to commercial property owners at five per cent.

Tax bills for 2019 were mailed out on May 24 and this year it’s expected that non-residential property owners will face the full weight of the tax shift without any buffer or assistance from the city. Preliminary estimates from the city suggest that more than 64 per cent of commercial properties could be facing tax hikes of 10 per cent or more in 2019.