By John Lynds
The Lynn City Council set the new tax rates for residential and commercial properties at Tuesday night’s meeting.
The new tax rate for residential properties will drop from $15.60 to $15.15 per $1,000 while the tax rate for commercial properties will also drop two percent to $29.45 per $1,000.
However, although the tax rate for residential properties has been lowered 45 cents, residents here will see an increase in their tax bill, due to the fact that property values are on the rise and properties across the city will be assessed accordingly.
For example, a single family home on Harmon Street near Lynn Woods was previously assessed for $275,000 during Fiscal Year 2017. That homeowner paid $4,166.25 last year under the higher residential tax rate.
For FY2018, the preliminary assessment for the same single family home is $305,000. Even with the lower tax rate that homeowner will pay $4,620.75 or $454.50 more in property tax.
At the meeting Tuesday, the Council reported that the average tax bill for single-family homeowners will be $4,533, a condo owner will pay an average of $2,801 and two and three-family homeowners will pay $5,916 on average. That represents 6, 5.9 and 5.5 increases on average when compared to last year.
The tax rate reduction represents five straight years of reducing the rate since a 10-year high back in 2014, when the tax rate was set at $17.13 per $1,000. The same can be said for the commercial tax rate, which has also been reduced year after year since 2014 when the commercial tax rate was set at $34.58 per $1,000.
The Massachusetts Department of Revenue is expected to approve the city’s tax rate once the budget is balanced, and tax bills should be mailed by the end of the year.