eTaxBC help guide for rural property taxes

If your property is located in a rural area, you can use eTaxBC to:

• Pay your property taxes
• Review your account history
• Claim your home owner grant
• Review your home owner grant status

Pay your property taxes

You can pay your property taxes through:

• Recurring pre-payments
• A one-time payment   

Recurring pre-payments

You can set up your eTaxBC account to make automatic semi-monthly or monthly payments towards next year’s property taxes. To set up your account for recurring pre-payments:

1. Log on to your eTaxBC account
2. Select View Folio on the Account Panel of the appropriate folio 
3. Select Create or Cancel Recurring Pre-payment listed on the menu on the top right
4. Select your frequency, then select Next
5. Select your preference for paying the remaining balance, then select Next
6. Select your payment amount, note that the amount paid each month cannot exceed 10% of last year’s tax after the home owner grant was claimed. Select Next
7. Enter your bank information in the appropriate fields. Select Next
8. Review and agree to the Pre-Authorized Debit Agreement by selecting Yes. Select Next
9. Review the summarized information shown
10. Select Submit

Once you’ve set up your recurring pre-payments, you can change your pre-payment information if you need to by cancelling your recurring pre-payments and then following the above steps again. You can also cancel your recurring pre-payments if you want to pay your property taxes through a different method.

Cancel your recurring pre-payments

To cancel your recurring pre-payments:

1. Log on to your eTaxBC account
2. Select View Folio on the Account Panel of the appropriate folio
3. Create or cancel recurring pre-payment listed in the menu on the top right
4. Select Yes beside Would you like to cancel your recurring pre-payment agreement?
5. Select Submit

One-time payment

Payments can only be made using the bank account(s) you've added to your eTaxBC account. Credit card payments aren’t accepted.

When you make a payment in eTaxBC, your payment will be effective the date you enter as the Payment Date. For example, if you submit a payment on the due date before midnight Pacific Standard Time, your payment will be considered on time, even though we may not process it until the next day.

Your payment is accepted subject to being cleared by your financial institution. Your financial institution may still reject the payment.

To make a one-time payment:

1. Log on to your eTaxBC account
2. Select Make a payment on the Account Panel of the appropriate folio
3. Confirm your payment channel (bank account information). If you’re adding a payment channel, you’ll need to agree to the Pre-Authorized Debit (PAD) Agreement before you can submit the payment. To do this, select Yes at the bottom of the agreement
4. Confirm the payment date. This is the date your payment will be applied to your account
5. Confirm the amount of your payment
6. Select Yes to authorize the payment
7. Select Submit to receive your confirmation number

Your payment will have a status of Submitted until we send the request to your financial institution. This usually takes one business day. However, it may take up to 5 business days for your payment to be transferred from your bank account, especially if this is your first time making a payment on eTaxBC. Payments made are not guaranteed until the amount is debited from your account. If a payment fails it may result in a dishonoured payment fee.

Review your account history

To review your account history:

1. Log on to your eTaxBC account
2. Under More, in the Submissions panel, select Search Submissions
3. If the submission you are looking for is not listed, select Search option under Processed and search your past payments by date range

Items in the Submissions will be listed under one of the following statuses:

• Pending - The item has been submitted for processing
• Processed - The item has been completed
• Deleted - The item has been cancelled
• Draft - The item has been saved, but not yet submitted

Claiming your home owner grant

You can claim your home owner grant and review its status through eTaxBC.

To claim your home owner grant:

1. Review eligibility requirements prior to applying
2. Log on to your eTaxBC account
3. Select View Folio on the Account Panel of the appropriate folio
4. Apply For Home Owner Grant listed in the menu on the top right if you qualify
5. Complete the information as prompted, then select Next
6. Once you have completed all steps, select Submit

Review your home owner grant status

The status of your home owner grant on the Periods tab will show differently from the status in your Submissions. Once your home owner grant application has been received (overnight) the status will change.

Your home owner grant will have one of the following statuses:

• Not Applied - The application has not been received or is in a pending status
• In Progress - The application has been received and is under review
• Approved - The application has been approved and applied
• Denied - The application has been denied