Property taxes in the Province of Manitoba are made up of two different elements. There are civic taxes and there are education taxes that are all lumped together to become your annual property tax bill. Your property taxes are due, at least in the City of Winnipeg, on June 30 every year.Elsewhere in Manitoba, depending on your municipality, taxes may be due September 30 or October 31.

Looking at Winnipeg’s June 30 deadline, there are really three different ways a homeowner can pay their property taxes. The first is the old-school way of doing it, which is coming up with a huge lump sum of money every summer.

Alternatively, you can have the lender collect your taxes with your mortgage payments, which is a payment method commonly referred to as PIT, or “principal, interest, and taxes.” The down side is that the bank will generally overcharge you a little bit so that when they have to pay the City on your behalf, they’re ensured of having the right amount of money.

The third and most popular way, is to sign up for what’s called the TIPP – the Tax Installment Payment Plan. This is where the City of Winnipeg will simply go into your account on the first of every month and electronically debit the one-twelfth of your annual tax bill.

At Sparrow Team, we generally recommend either the TIPP option or the PIT option over the annual lump sum option simply because it’s a lot more convenient to pay a large tax bill spread out over the course of the entire year.