Remember the days when you use to hear how we keep the taxes beneath the maximum possible and that we have an excess tax levy capacity of $10 million dollars?

  Here is a quote from the column:

Worcester does not tax to the max, however; it plans on raising $274.86 million in taxes this year.    But what about the $10 million in excess tax-levy capacity that city councilors often like to boast about because the city does not tax to the max?      Well, that $10 million in untapped tax-levy capacity is now down to about $6 million even though the city never spent a penny of it.     Now that Worcester’s single tax rate is $24.46, it means the City Council could only raise an additional $6 million more in property taxes if it wanted to before hitting the $25 single tax rate limit. As for the other $4 million, it could not be used unless voters agreed to override that tax cap.

  Now we only have $6 million, but consider this:

  1. Properties like the office buildings on Plantation Street by UMASS have been taken off the tax rolls.
  2. Many bigger older commercial buildings taxed commercially are being converted to residential.
  3. Other commercial building that were being taxed commercially are being taken off the tax rolls since for profits can not afford to buy the building when they add in their property taxes to their annual expenses.

 

              Our bet here is that next year the the $10 million excess tax levy, that is now $6 million, will be gone completely.   Why do we bring this up tonight?   The highest commercial tax rate tonight that was approved only makes commercial building less attractive to for profit-owners and are even more apt now to be bought be a non-profit and taken off the rolls.