Tax-lash: Boston Mayor Michelle Wu’s renewed tax shift bill push met with chilly reception from Senate, businesses
A day after Boston Mayor Michelle Wu singled out state Sen. Nick Collins for killing her tax shift legislation, Collins fired back, saying that Wu’s renewed push to shift more of the city’s tax burden onto businesses would jeopardize the economy.
Collins said that while he supports providing tax relief to homeowners, there are better “common-sense solutions” that have been proposed by the Senate, where the mayor’s proposal to shift more of Boston’s property tax burden from the residential to commercial sector died late last year, and stalled there again this year.
“I strongly support providing tax relief for homeowners but oppose the city’s effort to circumvent Prop 2 ½, which would remove the people’s right to vote on local tax increases,” Collins said Wednesday in a statement. “That is wrong, and I will continue to support and defend people’s right to vote.
“The Senate has proposed measures that deliver meaningful relief to homeowners without jeopardizing our economy,” Collins said. “These include rebates and other targeted relief designed to help seniors and our most vulnerable. I hope the city will support these common-sense solutions that provide relief to homeowners without putting our economy at risk.”
The latest dust-up between the mayor and South Boston senator comes at a time when Wu is pressing the Senate to immediately act on her stalled tax shift legislation to prevent a second year of double-digit tax increases for homeowners.
According to Wu, the average-single-family homeowner is facing a 13%, or $780, tax increase next year, with bills set to hit mailboxes in January. Her three-year tax shift bill would lower that increase to $480, per her office.
The mayor said that commercial property owners are set to see a decline in their property tax bill next year. For example, she said the average Class A office tower tax bill is projected to decrease by 4.4%, or $210,000.
More of the city’s tax burden is being shifted onto homeowners, Wu said, due to a post-pandemic trend of remote-work-driven vacant office space that is leading to declining commercial values at a time when residential values are increasing.
Commercial property values are expected to drop by 6% next year, compared to 5% last year, while residential values are projected to rise by 2%, compared to 3% last year, Wu said.
Those projections have Gregory Maynard, executive director of the Boston Policy Institute, warning that the city is hurtling toward BPI’s worst-case scenario of a $2.1 billion budget shortfall within five years due to dropping commercial values.
“This is something we can fix and that we can take action to address,” Wu said Tuesday.
Referring to Collins, she said her tax shift bill was passed by the City Council and House of Representatives twice, but was “blocked by a single state senator from receiving a vote before the state Senate, which would have been its final vote hurdle that it needed to clear.”
Collins used a procedural move to block the mayor’s legislation repeatedly, but it was ultimately killed by Senate President Karen Spilka, due to a lack of support, after Department of Revenue-certified numbers of city assessing data showed residential tax increases were lower than projected by the city last year.
City officials have not provided the fiscal year 2026 residential and commercial tax rates, saying on a Tuesday press call that they have yet to be certified by the state Department of Revenue.
Collins accused the city of withholding the “critical data” for a second straight year, and called for it to be released in light of the latest property tax hike debate.
“Unfortunately, the city has committed to raising property taxes on everyone during a time of financial strain,” Collins said. “At the same time, the city is once again withholding critical valuation data from policymakers and the public.
“We are asking the city to release the data,” the South Boston Democrat said.
The Senate president did not indicate that the mayor’s bill was a priority.
“The Senate president will discuss this bill with members, as she does with all pieces of legislation,” a Spilka spokesperson said Wednesday in a statement. “The Senate remains committed to working with stakeholders across Massachusetts to find solutions to increase housing affordability and drive down costs for residents and families.”
Wu’s renewed push for the tax legislation also received a frosty reception from at least one of the business groups that had backed out of a compromise with the mayor late last year after the city valuation data was finalized.
Wu sent a letter to the four business groups involved in that compromise — the Boston Municipal Research Bureau, Greater Boston Chamber of Commerce, Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation, and NAIOP Massachusetts — on Wednesday requesting that they “publicly reaffirm support” for last year’s deal and join the city in “urging immediate passage.”
NAIOP CEO Tamara Small said the mayor shouldn’t count on her organization’s support, while explaining that talks fell apart between the city and business groups last year after DOR-certified property valuations “materially differed from the data provided by the city in discussions leading up to certification.”
Last year’s property tax hike for homeowners was in line with previous years, at 10.4%, rather than 33% as projected by the city, Small said.
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“This year, the city believes there will be a 13% increase,” Small said in a statement. “If the data is verified by the Department of Revenue to show that the industry is indeed facing significant challenges resulting in reduced property valuations, the solution is not to further punish the business sector by increasing its tax burden.
“Whether borne by a business tenant or a property owner, increased taxes translate into higher costs across the board and make it harder to incentivize new investment at every level of business. Instead, the city should use the resources available to lower the tax burden for its most vulnerable residents.”
Small added that “NAIOP continues to urge the city to closely examine recent anti-growth policies that hinder new development while also exploring ways to diversify its revenue streams to ensure Boston does not rely on any one sector to fund the city’s budget.”
The Boston City Council is set to hold a tax classification hearing next week.
