Now that Boston tax bills have actually gone out, Wu to try again with temporary residential tax break at the legislature

Mayor Wu said today she'll ask the City Council to ask the state Legislature to increase commercial tax rates over a three-year-period to help ease the tax burden on homeowners - and hopes that now that homeowners have actually gotten their tax bills, state Sen. Nick Collins of South Boston might change his mind about letting his constituents get walloped.

Her announcement comes a couple weeks after the city sent out tax bills. And it comes a few days after Collins, who blocked the bill in the Senate last month and who is prone to angry outbursts, has had a chance to cool down now that his constituents have been hit with tax bills and now that he has learned that his boy Ed Flynn will not be running against Wu.

Of late, however, Flynn has balked at the idea of shifting some of the city's tax burden onto commercial property owners for three years, saying Wu knew the problem of declining commercial property values downtown had been coming for months and should have been working to slash city spending - except in the Police Department, which Flynn says should get more funding.

According to Wu's office, without the measure in place:

The taxes for the average single family home receiving a residential exemption increased 10.4%, which is nearly $575 for the year and a 21% bill-to-bill increase. When expanded to include additional residential property types - not only single family homes but also duplexes, condos, and standalone apartments without commercial components - average annual taxes increased 14.9%, around $833 for the year, or a 30% bill-to-bill jump. These averages mask the variation across different neighborhoods and properties, and it has been widely documented that many residential taxpayers received a significantly higher increase due to a combination of regular market value changes and the added impact of the commercial tax responsibility shift that the administration sought to avoid through legislation. While individual value changes vary by neighborhood and individual property, the overall shift of commercial responsibility increases the burden on residents across all residential property types and neighborhoods.

Overall data analysis shows that more than 55% of all residential property owners received a bill with an annual increase greater than 9% (or quarter-to-quarter bill jump of more than 18%). Had Mayor Wu’s compromise legislation been approved by the State Senate last month, this would have been reduced to 21.5% of residential properties with such a significant increase. With these January bills, the average commercial property received a 3.4% reduction in taxes - about $7,745 less than the previous year. For office buildings, the tax decrease was even larger: a 7% drop.

At issue is a provision in Proposition 2 1/2 that limits the total annual growth in property-tax income to 2 1/2 percent a year - and lets municipalities charge different rates for commercial and residential property, but only to a point. If the value of commercial property fall sharply, as happened downtown, in part because many people are still working at home, residential property owners have to make up the difference, absent sharp cuts in city spending.

As with the measure that Collins blocked in December, the new proposal would include the city spending up to $15 million for each of the three years to reduce the tax burden on small businesses - which would also increase the amount of "personal property" - such as barbershop chairs - they could exempt from their taxes.

The measure would add a new provision: Expands property tax relief for low-income seniors by modifying the eligibility criteria for the 41C senior tax relief program, as well as increasing the amount of the exemption.