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Dear Fellow Reading Homeowners:
You’ve probably heard of Proposition 2 1/2, which limits the increase in Reading’s property tax revenue to 2.5% from one year to the next. However, you’ve probably noticed that your property tax bill frequently goes up by more than 2.5%. It has in every year except one going back to 2011.
In fact, the average Reading homeowners’ tax bill has gone up over 60% since 2011 or about 5% per year. The major reason for this is that residential property values have been going up much faster than commercial property values. Therefore, a greater and greater share of Reading’s property tax revenue has come from homeowners and a smaller and smaller share has come from commercial property owners.
The typical commercial property owners’ tax bill has gone up only about 15% since 2011 or roughly 1% per year. This inequity between property tax increases for homeowners versus those for commercial property owners has occurred because Reading applies the same or almost the same tax rate to residential and commercial property.
The Select Board can fix this inequity by adjusting the tax rates and setting a different tax rate for commercial property than for residential property. However, it has done this only to a very small degree.
For the current fiscal year 2025 (which started on July 1), if the Select Board does not increase the difference between the residential and commercial rates, the property tax of a typical homeowner will go up by $113 (1.1%) while that of the typical commercial property owner will go up by only $28 (0.3%).
The Select Board could increase the difference between the residential and commercial rates so that everyone’s tax bill went up by about $100. Or it could increase the difference a bit more to make up for the disproportionate increases for homeowners in recent years.
Many Reading homeowners, especially our seniors and families with children, are struggling to deal with the aftermath of the Covid pandemic and high inflation. Reducing the increase in homeowners’ property tax bills would provide some welcome relief and a fairer distribution of Reading’s property tax revenue. It would put a little money in their pockets that they could spend at Reading businesses.
I urge you to contact the Select Board (selectboard@ci.reading.ma.us or 781-942-6644) to urge them to implement a fairer property tax system for Reading that would reduce homeowners’ tax increases. The Board is scheduled to make this decision at its meeting on Tuesday, Oct. 29.
John Lippitt
Mineral St.
Reading, MA 01867
