How much is a city like Boston worth? The answer is a moving target. And a narrow miss just torpedoed Mayor Michelle Wu’s contentious push to boost tax rates on office buildings.
As it readied tax bills for next year, Boston’s Assessing Department this fall updated the values of some 170,500 properties, determining what each is worth, and whether, together, the real estate taxes charged on those parcels will generate enough revenue to fund the bulk of Boston’s $4.6 billion budget. It’s a dynamic process that’s difficult, if not impossible, to perfect — particularly these days, when the long-term effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on the value of commercial real estate remain a major uncertainty.
Source: Wu tax plan: How much is a city’s real estate worth? It’s complicated.
