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Wayland Taxes
Selectman Alan Reiss recently presented a document to the Board of Selectmen indicating that taxes had grown 47% on the average house in Wayland from FY2000-FY2006 (his analysis based on data from the Assessors' Office, and supported by this document.) A table in the Boston Globe also includes this figure. This 47% number was also mentioned in an email newsletter that is distributed to hundreds of Wayland residents, in the following statement:
"When an anti-override group said last spring that property taxes have risen 47 percent on average since 2000, the Finance Committee played a prominent role in trying to discredit the assertion.... It turns out that RSVP was not misleading anybody by using state figures. For a house assessed at the fiscal 2006 median of $599,400, taxes increased about 48 percent since fiscal 2000. For a house assessed at the average of $693,259, the increase is about 47 percent."
As often as it is cited, however, the 47% figure is, in fact, misleading. Jeff Dieffenbach explained the actual tax growth in his blog, and provides his calculation method for the actual tax growth. He compounds year-over-year changes in the tax-base (excluding "new growth").
The calculation resulting in the 47% is straightforward; however, this number generally does not reflect individual homeowner increases. This figure is arrived at by dividing the tax on the average property in 2006 by the tax on the average property in 2000. However, this calculation does not distinguish new homes, knockdowns, and substantially expanded homes where assessments dramatically increased from homes where no major work was done. Therefore, using 47% as an "average" leaves the misimpression that it reflects the typical homeowner's experience, when it does not. A more correct calculation would look at the change in tax burden on the same properties. New construction (since FY2000), in fact, appears to account for about 12% of Wayland's FY2006 tax base -- leaving the other 35% as the actual average tax growth on the same (unimproved) properties.
To a large extent, 47% v. 35% may be merely academic. The relevant number for an individual taxpayer is most likely the tax increases they have seen on their own individual property. To view tax histories for your, or other properties in Wayland, click here.
If we care about the 47%, how does Wayland compare to other communities?
Wayland's tax growth, by this measure, is comparable to other towns in Massachusetts, and is quite typical in this era of reduced availability of state aid. See this editorial in the Boston Globe on the topic.
Using the same data as was employed in the Globe editorial, we can further explain why the 47% figure is misleading. Below we show tax growth calculated in this way for all Massachusetts communities. We have pointed out with an arrow where Wayland falls to show where Wayland's tax growth (calculated in this simplistic way) compares with all Massachusetts communities*.
Note: Each bar shows the number of communities with tax growth within the % Growth range for that bar. The increment for each range is 2.5%, such that each bar contains all towns with "average tax growth" at about the same level. The bar above the 40% label, for example, contains all towns with tax growth between 37.5% and 40%. Wayland, with 46.9% tax growth is shown in the 47.5% bar, which contains all towns between 45% and 47.5% growth. For complete data for all towns in the DOR database, click here.
* Data for thirteen communities that have adopted a residential exemption were excluded from the state's data (and hence, from our chart) because they do not submit adequate data to determine an average tax bill. The thirteen communities are Barnstable, Boston, Brookline, Cambridge, Chelsea, Everett, Marlborough, Nantucket, Somerset, Somerville, Tisbury, Waltham, and Watertown. The residential exemption reduces the taxable valuation of each residential parcel that is a taxpayer's principal residence. Granting the exemption raises the residential tax rate and shifts the residential tax burden from low and moderately valued homes to apartments and higher valued homes.