Foreword
Municipal and school taxes represent a significant expense for a homeowner each year. For users of points & miles, this is the opportunity to unlock welcome bonuses, thanks to these expenses.
As always, only use these methods:
- if you are able to pay your credit card balance in fullby the due date (otherwise the interest charged will eat up all the bonus you earned)
- if you consider the fees generated vs. the rewards collected: if your card only accumulates 1% and offers no welcome bonus, there is no need to pay a 2% or 2.9% fee. In this case, the two solutions proposed below will not bring you any benefit.

Pay your municipal taxes with Plastiq
Would you like to use a Visa or Mastercard credit card to pay your municipal or school taxes? No problem. Plastiq.com offers you this possibility. By the way, we have written a detailed article on Plastiq.
The fees charged by Plastiq vary depending on the card used. Generally, it is 2.9% for all Visa and Mastercard payments.

Paying your city taxes on Plastiq.com with a Mastercard or Visa card is also a good way to unlock the welcome bonus !
For example, National Bank’s World Elite Mastercard requires you to carry a certain amount in the first 12 months to unlock the generous welcome bonus.

Pay your municipal taxes with PaySimply
We have written an article that describes how PaySimply works.
PaySimply is very secure and has been approved by the Canada Revenue Agency, among others (just like Plastiq). For Visa, Mastercard and American Express credit cards, the fee is 2.5% of the total bill.
For example, with the BMO Ascend World Elite Mastercard which offers 2 points per dollar for every transaction. Right now, the welcome bonus is 70,000 points if you spend $3,000 in the first 3 months. In addition, this card is free for the first year and offers 4 free accesses to airport lounges.
So when you sign up for the BMO Ascend World Elite Mastercard and paying $3,000 in municipal taxes via PaySimply with this new card, you will get
- A welcome bonus of 70,000 points (worth $467, an exclusive offer from Milesopedia)
- 6,000 points for the expense (a value of $43 in travel points)
This puts the 2.5% fee paid through PaySimply for this transaction ($75) into perspective.

Of course, it will always be more profitable to spend this $3,000 in 3 months through other purchases – like at Costco, for example – but if paying municipal taxes can help you, why not?
Here are some other interesting Mastercard credit cards to use on PaySimply:
Bottom Line
Why not take advantage of earning points & miles on your municipal tax payments when there’s a way to do it?