Town to Keep Single Rate for Property Taxes

As in past years, everyone will pay the same rate in local property taxes, it’s just a matter of how much they will pay.

While there is no tax rate estimated yet for the upcoming fiscal year, the selectmen did agree last week to maintain a single rate for both residential and businesses in town.

According to Administrative Aceessor Mark Mazur, Sharon does not have enough business to justify a split rate.

“It wouldn’t make sense. You would be giving the residents a slight benefit but to do that you would really have to hit the commercial, industrial, and personal property tax payers really hard,” Mazur said.

About 92.5 percent of local property taxes are residential with the remaining 7.5 percent from commercial, industrial, and personal property.

The town would need business to be able to pay at least 10 percent of the tax burden to be able to remotly justify a split rate according to Mazur.

For the current fiscal year, the rate is $20.45 per $1,000 in property value.

In additions, residential values continue to go up which is good news according to Mazur.

“We have raised the assessment a modest amount because the sales have been going up which is a good sign as the area comes out of the downturn,” he said.