The proposed residential tax exemption is not perfect. Towns have limited options under the State law to provide targeted tax relief. One flaw is that the exemption will benefit some property owners that don’t need assistance along with those that do. But this is not a reason to reject the proposal. Many very low-income owners live in the homes they grew up in and inherited. The value of the home has likely increased significantly since it was originally built or purchased by a previous generation, but that value increase is unconnected to the ability of the current owner to pay taxes. Programs to provide relief for owners in this situation are common because the alternative is long time owners being forced to sell their homes, or farm and forest owners being forced to sell to developers.

Many communities tax farms, open land and forested areas at their current use value, rather than at their potential development value. All owners of such property benefit regardless of income. The same is true for tax exemptions for seniors, which are often not restricted to those with lower incomes. At the federal level, the mortgage interest deduction allows interest on a mortgage of $750,000 — hardly targeting lower income owners. The benefit to those in need offsets the collateral benefit to those that are not.

The most frequent objection I hear from my second home owning friends is not so much to the proposed exemption itself, but to the fact that non-residents are not permitted to vote at town meeting or in local elections. Shifting the tax burden toward second homeowners, (even at the minimum 10% the State law permits, as Patrick White has proposed), seems to many to be adding the insult of higher taxes to the injury of not being permitted to vote.

Although I am a primary resident, I understand the feeling of “taxation without representation” that many second homeowners express. However, I urge everyone to keep the two issues separate. The issue of whether non-resident property owners should be able to vote is not related in any way to whether a residential tax exemption is worthwhile except for the emotional connection. When the exemption is considered on its own merits, I believe it passes the test of being the best currently available approach to address a problem that exists today.

Part Two: The Data will be in the next issue of SU