Assessment & Taxation

Municipal taxation is the process of applying a tax rate to a property’s assessed value to determine the amount of property tax payable.

Minimum Tax

The Town may levy a minimum property tax by bylaw. A minimum tax applies only when the calculated tax amount is less than the minimum amount set by Council. It is not an additional surcharge.

Special Culture and Recreation Tax

The Town may levy a special tax to fund specific services or projects that benefit the community. These services may include recreation facilities, fire protection, water and sewer infrastructure, drainage, and other municipal services.

All property owners in Alberta, with some exceptions, are required to pay a provincial education property tax based on their property’s assessed value.

The Town of Vermilion collects this tax on behalf of the Province of Alberta and remits it to the Alberta School Foundation Fund, which distributes funding to public and separate school boards across the province.

A local improvement tax may be levied to fund projects that provide a greater benefit to a specific area of the municipality rather than the community as a whole. Only properties that benefit from the project are subject to this tax.

In October 2022, Council for the Town of Vermilion eliminated new local improvement taxes by establishing an infrastructure reserve funded through a minimal fee on utility bills. Property owners currently paying a local improvement tax are not required to pay the utility fee until their local improvement tax period has ended

• In 2021, the Alberta Government elected to update the legislation and begin collecting a municipality's policing cost share under the Policing Funding Model Regulation. A portion of the costs of frontline policing are now charged back to municipalities based on population, equalized assessment, crime severity, shadow population and detachment locations. Although not a separate line item on your tax notice, the Town of Vermilion has been tasked with collecting $260,878 in 2025 towards policing which is transferred directly to the Alberta Government like the school tax.

• The tax rate is the number that is multiplied by each property's assessed value to determine its property taxes. It is usually expressed in four (4) to six (6) decimal places such as 0.008437. Due to the number of decimal places, municipalities often communicate tax rates as mill rates.
• The mill rate is achieved by multiplying the tax rate by 1,000. For example, using the number above, a tax rate of 0.008437 would be presented as 8.44 in mill rate terms.
• The mill rates are itemized on the 2025 Property Tax Bylaw No. 3-2025. 

Relationship between Property tax & Assessment Values: