Summer is Over: It's Tax Rate Setting Season in New Hampshire
As the summer draws to a close, some people begin focusing on Major League Baseball’s playoffs. But what is on the minds of the New Hampshire’s town selectmen and city administrators is what is taking place at the Department of Revenue Administration’s Municipal and Property Division. During the period beginning September 1 and continuing through as late as December 15, the Municipal and Property Division undertakes and completes the tax rate setting process for all of New Hampshire’s municipalities and counties in order to determine a tax rate for each municipality and county. The municipalities submit the budgets that have been approved at school district and town meetings or adopted by cities or counties for review by the Municipal and Services Division. Additionally, the municipalities and some counties that assess taxes for unincorporated places submit reports of the amount of taxable property in each town, city or unincorporated places. From these two basic inputs, a tax rate will be set for each municipality so that the municipalities can send out the tax bills for each property. The overall tax rate will include the tax rate for municipal services as well as a tax rate for the school and one for the county as well. Each town is anxiously awaiting the determination of the Municipal and Property Division’s because once it has issued a tax rate the municipalities may send out their tax bills and start to have revenue coming in the door from taxpayers paying their tax bills. Once the tax rates are set and the tax bills have been sent out, the period in which to appeal an assessment begins ending on March 1. Individuals cannot appeal the tax rate (although the municipalities have a right to appeal the tax rate), but they may appeal the assessed value of their property on which the tax is assessed.
By: John F. Hayes, Esq., General Counsel/Senior Tax Representative to Allobar Strategies and former general counsel to the New Hampshire Department of Revenue Administration
For more information on property tax abatement appeals in New Hampshire, please visit Allobar Strategies.