AMHERST — A typical Amherst homeowner could see property tax bills increase by more than $500 this year, though the exact impact from the new tax rate won’t be known until it is certified in early November.
At a tax classification hearing Monday, the Town Council approved a recommendation from Assessor Kimberly Mew and Town Manager Paul Bockelman to set a single tax rate.
“All properties would pay on the same rate, which is a factor of 1,” Mew said.
Mew used an estimated tax rate of $17.10 per $1,000 valuation, though she cautioned this number will remain in flux until it is certified by the state Department of Revenue.
If that does become the tax rate for an average single-family home, now assessed at $611,574, the average tax bill would rise by $530 from last year, to around $10,458.
Part of the reason for this increase, more than $200 above the change from last year, comes from the borrowing costs associated with the new Amethyst Brook School that opened this school year. When voters in May 2023 approved the Proposition 2 1/2 debt-exclusion override, tax bills were estimated to rise about $478 each year, above the regular tax increase, over a 25- to 30-year period.
Mew explained that 88.9% of the properties, or 6,309, are classified as residential, with just 264 properties, a “very small” number, that are commercial.
For the purpose of classifying single-family homes, accessory dwelling units are not counted toward the average single-family home assessment, Mew said.
While splitting the tax rate could reduce the burden on residential taxpayers, Mew showed how commercial properties might see their bills go up by as much as $6,001, from $12,001 to $18,102, under the maximum shift and with the hypothetical tax rate.
Most of the questions from the Town Council focused on whether to consider opting in to the residential exemption, which provides a property tax discount for owner-occupied homes.
Only 16 Massachusetts communities have a residential exemption, typically Boston suburbs and coastal towns with large numbers of vacation homes. Such a measure could hurt some property owners, including people with second homes in town, as well as full-time residents whose homes are held in a trust and who may not be listed as the property owners.
Amherst has 4,468 owner-occupied homes and 2,068 non-owner-occupied properties, which includes commercial sites.
Mew said using a residential exemption would mean better identifying each property. “There is a lot of work that would need to go into verifying all of these,” Mew said.
Mew noted that just because someone owns an expensive home doesn’t make someone wealthier. In Amherst, this could mean shifting the tax burden away from lower-valued owner-occupied properties onto other types of residential properties, with higher costs being passed on to renters.
There is worry about triggering higher tax bills for rental properties.
“It does tend to penalize low-income renters because the apartment complexes would not qualify, and it’s a possibility that an increase in rents would be passed on to the renters,” Mew said.
Along with not offering a residential exemption, the Town Council voted no small commercial exemption, which applies to businesses with fewer than 10 employees and valuation less than $1 million, or for open space.
