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This article was published 24/10/2019 (338 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Coun. Ross Eadie says owners of lower-priced homes need a property-tax break.

And, he wants to pay for it with a property-tax increase.

Eadie is proposing a plan to offer owner-occupied homes assessed at $250,000 or less a $100 credit towards their annual municipal tax bill.

Eadie told reporters during the noon-hour break at Thursday’s city council meeting that he believes the tax credit would cost about $3 million annually and could be paid for with a 0.5 per cent property-tax increase.

A tax increase of that size would probably add an additional $10 or less to a lower-priced home, leaving the owner with $90 of the proposed credit, Eadie said.

The owners of higher-priced homes will end up paying for the tax credit, he said.

"This is helping people who are having great difficulty making ends meet," Eadie said. "This will help alleviate the unaffordability that the poor people of Winnipeg are having to deal with."

Eadie claimed the reassessment process has resulted in the property tax bills of owners of lower-priced homes increasing at a faster rate than those of higher-priced homes.

"The lower-valued houses keep going up fast because people who don't have big incomes can only buy a house they can afford, so they compete for the cheaper houses and drive up the price," Eadie said.

Council didn’t get a chance to debate the idea, as it was an automatic referral to the executive policy committee.

If EPC doesn’t support the tax credit, Eadie said he will propose it during the upcoming budget debate.

aldo.santin@freepress.mb.ca