Changes are coming to the way we're taxed in Moose Jaw. City Council has agreed to start closing the tax gap - the difference in the amount that a resident pays compared to a commercial entity.

Finance Director Brian Acker says the disparity is rather large right now.

"If a dollar of commercial assessment was taxed the same as a dollar of residential, that ratio would be 1 to 1; you'd pay the same amount of taxes. Right now that ratio in Moose Jaw is 1 to 2.19. A commercial property actually pays 2.19 times what a residential property does with the same assessed value."

Council has agreed to use a tax sharing system from now on. Basically, if the approved mill rate increase is 6.4%, like it is this year, the City still collects the same amount of taxes overall, but a residential property would actually see a 7.56% tax increase and a commercial property would see a lower, 4% increase.

"Historically there's always been a significant amount of difference in terms of residential and commercial taxation, sort of as a whole in Saskatchewan. So you're slowly seeing that gap be eliminated, whether it's provincial decisions or municipalities like ourselves saying 'that is just too high a level of commercial taxation. We need to lower it.'"

Acker says it's a long, slow process, but eventually the gap between what each sector pays will narrow.