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KELOWNA - It’s going to take a few more days to count it all up but the City of Kelowna revenue department has just collected the better part of $252 million in property taxes.

“We usually get around 94 per cent of tax bills paid on time,” revenue supervisor Angie Schumacher said. “We expect it will be pretty consistent with previous years.”

Most of the remaining holdouts will eventually pay after some prodding by Schumacher and her team using one of the myriad payment options provided by the city.

Besides municipal property taxes, the city also collects levies on behalf of the library and school district, amongst others.

Mostly gone are the days when citizens had to line-up down the block to pay their taxes in person, Schumacher says, although that possibility does still exist.

“Some people still want that stamp on their receipt and we’re happy to give them the option,” she adds. “This year we have our new online billing system. We try to make it as easy as possible to pay your property taxes."

When queues do form at city hall, as they did in advance of yesterday’s tax deadline, Schumacher says her team will fan out and triage the line-up, helping customers use other payment methods and trying to ease wait times for the rest.

Municipal tax collection is strictly regulated under the Local Government Act and the Community Charter so property owners who are delinquent on their taxes have three years to catch up.

If they can’t or won’t pay their tax arrears, the property can be put up for forced tax sale, Schumacher says, which occurred with five properties last year, albeit reluctantly.

“I don’t want to see anyone losing their home,” Schumacher says, who points out that even a forced tax sale isn’t the end of the road.

“Right up to the point it is sold, they can pay up and even if it’s sold, they have a one-year redemption period where the sale is cancelled if the taxes are paid,” she adds.

And if line-ups at city hall during tax time are a thing of the past, so is the notion of paying your property taxes with a wheelbarrow full of pennies as some form of protest.

“The Currency Act allows us to refuse a certain amount of coin,” Schumacher says, although she says a coin protest has never happened in her time with the city.

“I’ve only been here a little over a year,” she laughs. “The worst was a guy who came in to pay his parking ticket with nickels."

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