Property Taxes

As of yesterday (12/14), 164 out of 353 towns in Massachusetts are still waiting to have their property tax rates approved by the state DOR.  In the table above, towns with an ‘NA’ (Not Available) in the 2010 tax rate column are still waiting on approvals.  Some of these towns may be in a revaluation year, where the assessment values must be reviewed and restated for current market conditions, as is the case with Northborough this year.

Recently in conversation with a friend,  the topic of assessments came up and the friend was hopeful for some relief in the form of reduced property taxes in this reassessment year.   I reminded her, the assessment valuation of a property may go down, but if town budget does not get reduced it will mean the tax rate will need to go up to cover town expenses.  Ultimately, the assessment is just a means to allocate taxes and taxes to the individual family may not change much.

In the table above, I have added residential and open space assessments as a percentage of total assessments.  I was curious to see if the local towns with a higher degree of commercial and industrial development in town had lower tax rates.  The theory is businesses use less town services (mainly schools, and trash pickup) thus are more tax revenue positive.   These two factors don’t seem to be highly correlated as Westborough has the highest business assessed percent and has the highest property tax rates and Shrewsbury has the lowest rate and among the lowest percent of business assessed value.

Of course, levels of service, buildings and equipment a town offers drives up budget and thus play a role in increasing the tax rate not factored into the business assessment to tax rate equation.  Perhaps a topic for another day…