The Alberta government is reviewing 17 recommendations to improve how the province recovers unpaid property taxes from oil and gas companies. A report from the Property Tax Accountability Strategy working group urges integrating property taxes into the Alberta Energy Regulator's mandate and giving the regulator faster, stronger tools when companies fall behind on tax obligations.
The working group includes representatives from the province, Rural Municipalities of Alberta, and rural municipal administrators, with support from AER and industry representatives as observers. While the recommendations aim to reduce future arrears, the province says it is unlikely to recover about $250 million in unpaid taxes accumulated over several years. Some measures are already in motion: Assets belonging to insolvent companies will be removed from municipal assessment rolls more quickly to limit uncollectible taxes, and municipalities will not be on the hook for uncollectible taxes from oil and gas assets for at least the next three years.
The push for stronger enforcement comes as landowners in south Edmonton have erected a blockade against MAGA Energy, a Calgary-based company that they said hasn't paid its lease on their property for three years. The AER is supposed to block the transfer of oil and gas leases to companies that are more than $20,000 in arrears on property taxes. But the Investigative Journalism Foundation reported that MAGA Energy has been able to drill new wells despite owing municipalities such as Parkland County and Sturgeon County hundreds of thousands of dollars, in addition to leaving landowners with unpaid bills. While the recommendations in the report are non-binding, the government aims to implement some through ministerial orders and regulatory change, Municipal Affairs Minister Dan Williams told reporters as the RMA's spring convention opened in Edmonton on March 16.