'21 Moultonborough Tax Rate Delay

[Fred W]

Hi Cal.
Your numbers are exactly correct as we now know. I was a little surprised when people were pulling up tax rates from two years ago and telling you that your numbers were wrong.
I am new to this forum and also live in Moultonborough (only three years though). I was honestly expecting this forum to be more helpful on questions like yours.
My bill went up by $1,400 and for sure some of it was a higher assessment, as the market has risen. I understand your reasoning on why these increases in rate in this booming economy might not make sense, but I also have no idea why they went up by so much during COVID. Three people offered some thoughts, and these increases are not just Town of Moultonborough only – I have to think most people on this forum (Belknap and Carrroll counties) have these same categories on their tax bills? I am also a bit confused that we just got our bill two weeks ago and so few folks even noticed the change?
Still, I am also interested as to why. Maybe someone on this forum has more knowledge on why these tax categories nearly doubled in only one year?

[phoenix]

The official numbers published by the town assessors office has tax rate in 2020 at $7.13 and 2021 at $6.98 times your assessment

[phoenix]

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[Sue Doe-Nym]

I had completely forgotten the change in fiscal years for Moultobborough, and I hope they will correct future billing, especially critical for those whose taxes are a part of their monthly mortgage payment, I think. The BOS should have listened to Chuck McGee re the millage instead of taking the easiest and more costly route.

[Descant]

Fred W, welcome to the Forum.
These tax questions come up here routinely, with the same misunderstandings repeated routinely. The key in this one, and I'm amazed it took 41 posts to get to it, is exactly what Tummyman said. You're going through a transition year to move from a calendar year to a fiscal year. Only a handful of towns have done this.
If you have a mortgage and escrow your taxes, your February escrow recalculation will put everybody in a tizzy again when the banks computer wants to raise your monthly tax escrow. It would be nice if the Town Selectmen would generate a form letter that you all could send to your respective mortgage servicing companies. Or, DRA may already have such a letter from previous towns going through this evolution.

Thanks to Tummyman for a great explanation.

[tis]

Fred W. -- and the one question you asked that tummy man didn't answer is why don't many people even realize their taxes go up. I believe a lot of it is because the bank pays their taxes monthly, included in their mortgage. I don't think some of them even look at their tax bill or maybe it isn't even sent to them. I have often wondered myself why more people don't pay attention.

[phoenix]

Not to belabor this but my assessment went up around 9% and taxes 7% which reflects the drop in tax rate so not sure what i missed

[Sue Doe-Nym]

Without sitting down with a calculator, my recollection is that our property taxes were roughly $550 higher than last year’s with an increase in our assessment of approximately $100k+/-. If 18 months of property taxes are factored in, I am thinking that there wasn’t a tax increase at all. What say you, fellow forum members?

[Cal-to-NH]

Yes,

This is exactly the answers to the question I asked. Thanks Fred for facilitating the answers that have been posted here and thanks to Tummyman for the enlightenment, and Tis for pointing out a reason why people don't really notice sometimes.

[tummyman]

Hi Fred W.
Let me try and help you though this question. First, you need to know that there are two displayed rates for tax bills. One is the rate set by the state for a "preliminary" tax bill sent out by M'boro in June. This rate is 50% of the prior year tax rate. So the first set of numbers by Cal are the preliminary rates set at 50% of the prior 2020 full year tax rate that was calculated for the December 2020 tax "final" bills for 2020. For example, the full year 2020 tax rate was $7.13....50% of it was the $3.55 set by the state for the 2021 'preliminary" bill this past June.

Now we get into what is happening to the full year tax rate of $6.98 that was used to calculate the December "final" bill you now have. First, the towns overall assessed valuations went up 10.3%....so your property assessment most likely went up, although it may or may not have gone up the 10.3% because each property has unique characteristics. The second thing is that the town elected to change the fiscal year to a July 1 - June 30 time frame instead of the former Jan-Dec. period. This meant that the town had to collect 18 months of tax revenue. However, they had to do this in the usual two billing installments...last June and now this December. So the tax bills are significantly higher this December than what would normally be expected due to the 18 month period. The town officials could have helped defray some of this added cost in the December bill in one of two ways. They could have voted to use an additional amount of unassigned funds to help reduce the tax rate. One member of the BOS (Chuck McGee) tried hard to allocate an extra $1 million dollars from this unassigned fund balance, but was rebuffed by the rest of the board, even though the balance is in excess of what the town has set as a guideline. The other way was for the board to go to NH DRA (they did not) and ask them to adjust the June billing rate to reflect the need to collect essentially 9 months of taxes in the preliminary June bill instead of using the state rate that amounted to collecting only 6 months of taxes. So now the December bill has to make this revenue shortfall up.

This now brings up a new problem that I have pointed out to the BOS Chair and the Town Administrator. The Town Administrator was no help and I had to go directly to NH DRA for guidance. The state has now given the town a 50% rate to be used in the tax bills next June. But because that rate is 50% of an 18 month budget, it is now overstated and if not adjusted, you will pay essentially 9 months of taxes next June and 3 months of taxes next December. I have been promised the BOS will take this up in the first part of the new year for some sort of resolution.

This whole thing can be confusing, but hope that I clarified it a bit. If you want to discuss it further, PM me and I'll call you.