BOSTON (WHDH) - Boston officials are considering a change to commercial tax rates in order to prevent a spike in residential taxes.
With more employees working from home, many Boston companies have cut back on the space they need. Rents have fallen, along with the values of commercial office buildings.
“That means that the taxes have gone along with that, and we need to take extraordinary efforts to try to keep that under control,” Mayor Michelle Wu said.
If nothing is done, residential property owners in Boston are expected to see their tax bills go up 14 percent. With a rate adjustment, Wu hopes the increase will be more like 9 percent.
Wu’s administration worked out a compromised with various Boston business groups to shift more of the tax burden away from homeowners and onto commercial property owners.
At an emergency meeting held virtually Friday, City Councilor Ed Flynn said he worries the council is acting like a “rubber stamp.”
“The process is rushed. I don’t think we’re doing the due diligence to all the constituents by not operating in a transparent manner,” Flynn said.
The city council is expected to hold a hearing on the proposal Wednesday. By law, the legislature must then sign off on the change before the tax proposal gets to Gov. Maura Healey’s desk.
“We are under a time constraint, I’m trying to get us to act as quickly as possible,” said City Council President Ruthzee Louijeune.
Wu said the proposition isn’t the first of its kind. She said that 20 years ago, Mayor Thomas Menino had to do a similar rebalancing act to shift some of the tax burden away from residential property owners.
Wu said everything went smoothly then, and she is confident this new shift in tax policy will not present an undue hardship for Boston businesses.
“Commercial taxes are going down, in the aggregate. The tricky part is that these numbers are continuing to shift. We won’t know exactly what the rates are until later in November,” Wu said.
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