Taxes and Assessments

A taxpayer revolt is brewing over the tax bills that went out recently. They reflect the town-wide reassessments that were finished recently, and that always produces howls.

Before you become one of the howlers, look at the total tax line on your bill and compare that number to last year. It's not the assessment that's important, it's how much tax you pay. If your taxes stayed the same, or went down, or went up by no more than the increase in town expenses (say about 5%), you're new assessment didn't hurt you and you should probably keep quiet.

When people started complaining to me (and more loudly to the assessors and town hall staff), at first I thought the complaints reflected the usual factors: for example, if someone's property hadn't been assessed in a long time, that property's assessment would go up by more than the average increase, resulting in an increase in tax. But not all the complaints can be explained by the usual factors, and I'm hearing about some real anomalies. E.g., I know of two very comparable houses, one of which saw its tax burden doubled and the other no increase. So I'm starting to think two other factors MIGHT be involved: Mistakes, too many of them; and flaws in the methodology, perhaps caused by the fact that the town-wide reassessments were done by one outfit at the beginning and a different outfit when the first one more or less disappeared.

In any event, remember that you have only until May 1 to file for an abatement, and you have to use the prescribed form. I'm told abatement filings are legion already.