FinCom backs off for now Residential tax exemption won’t deliver desired result By Erik Borg BANNER CORRESPONDENT PROVINCETOWN — The finance committee voted unanimously Tuesday not to recommend a residential tax exemption for full-time resident homeowners this year. The decision comes just days after Finance Director Dan Hoort published a forecast for what a split tax rate might look like in Provincetown based on customized local figures. “Basically, we think it’s premature,” said FinCom chair Mike Canizales. “The resident TAX continued on page 6 Article Continued Below See TAX on Page 06 TAX continued from page 1 tax exemption is not the big issue, it’s how much tax burden are we all able to bear?” A week ago, members of FinCom and the board of selectmen defended their right to consider a tax exemption while awaiting Hoort’s estimates, despite impassioned opposition from non-resident property owners who saw themselves bearing an increased tax burden in any scenario. With the Provincetowncentric modeling in-hand, however, the six-member Fin-Com took little time determining that the benefits of a tax exemption for full-time resident property owners would do little to outweigh the broader tax implications facing all property owners over the next five years. Property taxes across the board could stand to increase by 40 percent or more over the next half-decade if all requests in a $20 million capital improvement plan being floated by the selectmen are upheld, Canizales said. In comparison, a residential tax exemption likely would net a qualifying fulltime resident property owner a maximum of $710 on their annual tax bill, according to Hoort’s modeling. For full-time residents with median value properties, that figure would likely be considerably less and could even result in an increased tax bill for properties valued at the high end of the market, Hoort said. “The conversation we think the community needs to have first is, ‘Are you ready to have your taxes go up by 40 percent or so in the next five years?’” Canizales said. “When you look at those numbers, they’re so staggering it doesn’t even make sense to consider the exemption right now.” Instead, FinCom recommended that the town focus on considering what it can and should afford when budgeting for upcoming capital improvement projects. The sentiment among many in attendance on Tuesday was that a large-scale tax increase to account for $20 million in spending would be crippling, and that perhaps the town should look closely at its proposed earmarks for a new police station, public works facility, street paving, repairs to MacMillan Pier, and other projects on the horizon. The residential tax exemption modeling by Hoort and town staff provides the clearest picture yet about how a residential exemption would affect individual property owners in Provincetown, but it still hinges on several assumptions that could alter its impact in reality. According to Hoort, the assessor’s office does not have the data to determine exactly how many property owners would be eligible for an exemption, though it estimates between 873 and 1,397 of the town’s 2,503 residential properties would likely qualify. The exact number wouldn’t be known until an exemption is put in place, and could be additionally altered by property owners who change their residency status to gain eligibility, Hoort said. Despite the FinCom’s decision not to endorse a tax exemption this year, the selectmen will still have the opportunity to consider one when setting the annual tax rate in November. For now, selectmen chair Tom Donegan said he doesn’t expect a standard tax exemption allowed under Massachusetts state law to go into effect this year. The more likely possibility, he said, is for a custom tax exemption requiring special state legislation that would help to benefit a larger portion of the year-round community. For example, the town could pursue a special tax exemption that would extend eligibility to non-residents who rent out a unit in their home to members of the year-round community as well. “What we really want to do is protect our year-round housing,” he said. “The offthe- shelf model protects owner- occupied, less expensive housing, and I think this doesn’t align well with what our housing stock looks like,” Donegan said. “ I think for us to incent what we want, the likelihood is that we’ll need special legislation.”
Posted on: Thu, 04 Sep 2014 09:35:20 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015