Staff Photo by: Darcie Thom
Doug and Joan Danielson residence at 102-7th Avenue in Kipling.

By Lizz Bottrell, Citizen Staff

Over the past few weeks, some residents in Kipling have expressed concern as well as outright anger towards the new taxation system the Town of Kipling recently put into place. With the new method, which is a base tax method, residents pay a more equal amount of taxes. The old method was based on a property’s assessed value, making some residents pay as much as $2,500 while others paid as little as $775.

“When looking at taxes, we wanted a system that was fair and equatable to all,” said Kipling Mayor, Kevin Hassler when asked why the town moved to this base rate for property taxes. He said it didn’t seem fair that some people paid a lot more taxes for the same services as the person down the road who paid a lot less in taxes.

However, some residents really dislike the new system, saying their taxes went up as much as $600 a year. “This has got us really upset,” said Joan Danielson, who’s taxes went up over $400. “The people being hit the hardest by this are the people on pension and fixed income.”

Many people living on fixed incomes in Kipling find the extra money difficult to come by, making some of those people very resentful towards the town’s decision. “What they are telling the senior citizens on fixed incomes that grew this town is you don’t matter,” said Danielson. “If you can’t afford to live here, leave.”

Mayor Hassler said that is not the case. “We pride ourself in our community that has a lot of services for some of the older people on fixed incomes,” said Mayor Hassler. He also said the new system was not aimed at hurting the pocketbooks of people on fixed incomes.

“One thing we did was eliminate taxes going up next year,” said Mayor Hassler. Apparently next year all the properties in Kipling are set to be assessed and they are predicted to all go up a minimum of 20 percent. Therefore, taxes would have gone up at least 20 percent as well if the town stuck with the assessed value form of taxation.

Further, to clarify as to another reason why some people’s taxes went up and others went down, Mayor Hassler wanted to remind people that the education tax, which the town also collects, went up a lot this year. “Anywhere up to 40 percent of the tax bill is school taxes,” said Mayor Hassler.

However, all the people in town on fixed incomes who need to come up with the extra money for taxes, remain unhappy with the town’s decision, prompting them to schedule a meeting with the town council in order to discuss their concerns. The meeting will take place on July 14 at 7:30 p.m.