Question:
“I read that President Trump wants to get rid of property taxes for anyone over 65 years old. When will this happen?”
Answer:
While President Trump may want to get rid of property taxes for anyone age 65 or older, neither President Trump nor the federal government has no power to do so. Under the U.S. Constitution, property taxes are a matter of state law, and so each state decides how – and how much – property taxes it will collect.
In Massachusetts, our current property tax system – assessing all property as of January 1st each year at 100% of full and market value – is largely the result of the November, 1980 ballot question commonly known as Proposition 2 ½. Currently, WalletHub.com ranks Massachusetts’ property taxes as the 35th highest of the 50 states (You can read the article at: https://wallethub.com/edu/states-with-the-highest-and-lowest-property-taxes/11585).
Not just in Massachusetts – but throughout the entire country since the COVID-19 pandemic began in 2020 – there has been a huge increase in property values and their associated property tax bills. Because of this, reforming property tax systems or eliminating property taxes completely has become a hot political topic in many states.
But, the stark reality is that lowering or eliminating property taxes means the tax burden is shifted to someone else in order to keep funding local services.
For example, in South Carolina, when homeowners turn 65, they no longer have to pay the portion of their property taxes that funds their local schools. For seniors, that’s wonderful. But, the cost of supporting those schools doesn’t go away. The taxes that those 65 and over would have paid get shifted to all the homeowners under age 65.
In states considering eliminating the property tax altogether, the funds that pay for local services will have to come from somewhere else – such as increased state income taxes or state (and possibly local) sales taxes. As I learned in my high school economics class, TANSTAAFL. That acronym stands for “There ain’t no such thing as a free lunch.”
In Holliston, we offer a variety of exemptions that reduce property taxes for qualifying seniors and veterans. You can find information about them by going to the Assessors’ Office page on the Town of Holliston’s website (https://www.townofholliston.us/188/Assessors) and clicking on the appropriate “buttons” on the left side of the page. Or, call the Assessors’ Office at 508-429-0604.
And, if you ever want to learn more about property taxes, you can download a free copy of “A Good Tax: Legal and Policy Issues for the Property Tax in the United States” by going to this website: https://www.lincolninst.edu/publications/books/good-tax/.
