Canada Tax Appeal

What it costs, in plain numbers

The check is free and you don't need to create an account to see your result. If you decide to go ahead, here is everything you'd pay. The price never depends on who you are or what your home is worth. You see the full fee before you sign.

Two parts

  1. Upfront: a $79 fee, charged when you sign (after any cooling-off period), that covers our review and any required filing fee. That includes building your evidence, asking the assessor to review and, where a complaint needs one, the government filing fee — whatever the outcome.
  2. A share of the savings, only if your assessment goes down:

    • In Alberta and BC, 35% of the first-year tax saving, charged once, only if your assessment goes down.

    • In Ontario, 35% of the tax saving for 2.5 savings-years, collected in instalments once per tax year when your bill shows the saving, only if your assessment goes down.

If your assessment doesn't go down, there is no share-of-savings fee.

The formula

Share-of-savings fee = (old assessed value − new assessed value) × your municipality's published tax rate × years billed × our share.

We use the tax rate your municipality publishes for your property class. If the rate for the year isn't out yet when your decision arrives, we tell you we've used an estimate and correct the fee, up or down, once the real rate is published.

Example (illustrative round numbers, Alberta or BC)

Your assessment goes from $500,000 to $470,000, a reduction of $30,000. At an example tax rate of 1%, your tax for the year is $300 lower. Our share is 35% of $300, which is $105, charged once. Add the $79 you paid upfront, which also covered the filing fee, and your total cost is $184: you come out $116 ahead that year. If the assessment hadn't changed, you would have paid $79 and nothing more.

Ontario: why the fee covers more than one year, and how it's collected

In Ontario, a reduction usually lasts for the rest of the assessment cycle, so you save in more than one year. We bill 2.5 savings-years. We don't collect it all at once: we collect one instalment per tax year, around the date your final tax bill arrives, so you pay when you can see the saving.

Example (illustrative round numbers, Ontario)

Your assessment goes from $500,000 to $470,000. At an example tax rate of 1%, you save $300 a year. 2.5 savings-years is $750 of saving, and our 35% share is $262.50 in total. It's collected as $105 in the first year, $105 in the second and $52.50 in the third, each timed to that year's final bill.

Instalments stop if you sell the home or if the province announces a reassessment.

Alberta complaint fees

In Alberta, the municipality's complaint fee is included in your $79: we pay it when we file. What happens to that fee if the complaint succeeds is set out in your engagement letter.

How and when you pay

  • The upfront fee is charged to your card when you sign. If a cooling-off period applies, it's charged when that period ends.
  • The share of savings is charged by pre-authorized debit after the decision, with your card as a backup. Before we debit a share-of-savings fee, we send you the decision and the amount in advance.
  • Any tax refund or credit from the municipality goes to you, the owner, not to us. Your statement shows where and when your saving appears.

Refunds and cancelling

  • If you cancel within the cooling-off period stated in your engagement letter, the upfront fee is refunded in full to the way you paid.

  • If we make a billing error, we refund it to the way you paid, and your statement shows the correction.
  • Questions about a charge? Write to hello@canadataxappeal.com or ask for a callback. A person will go through it with you.

Every year in Alberta and BC is a fresh decision

In Alberta and BC, every year is a new decision: we show you the new number and fee, and nothing is filed or charged unless you approve it.

Fee tests, disclosed

We sometimes test a different fee structure, for example an upfront fee refunded if there is no reduction. The structure you're offered is shown in full before you sign and is assigned at random, never based on you.

Borderline cases we file at our cost

Each season we offer to file a small, random sample of borderline cases at our own cost, with the owner's consent, to test whether our "fairly assessed" calls were right. If you're offered one, it's clearly labelled, and you can say no. The methodology page explains why.

Commercial portfolios are priced differently. See commercial.

Fees explained: $79 upfront plus a share of savings