Ratepayers in the Rural Municipality of Hanover have only a few days left to pay their 2016 taxes.

Chief Financial Officer Don Dowle says the deadline is Monday at 4pm. This year's tax levy is $18.3 million, which includes education taxes. Dowle says historically about 90% of taxes are paid by the deadline in Hanover.

For those who skip the deadline, the penalty is a charge of 1.25% per month.

"That works out to about fifteen per cent per year which is almost close to what a credit card would charge," explains Dowle. "It's stiff for a reason because of course we need to get that money collected to fund the operations of the municipality."

Meanwhile, Hanover earlier this year introduced a pre-authorized payment program. This allows ratepayers to make monthly instalment payments on their taxes. There are no fees attached.

Dowle says so far about 70 people have signed up for this program, which works out to about 1% of all ratepayers. He says his goal is to grow that to 10%. Dowle says it works out to twelve equal payments, though he notes, the first six payments are based on the previous year's budget. Then once the new budget is approved, there is an adjustment for the remaining six payments.

For all those still needing to pay their taxes this year, Dowle suggests coming in Thursday or Friday in order to avoid long lineups on Monday. He says if you are paying online, to do that this week yet, as bank payments can often take a couple of days to process.