Council Tables Key Component Of Tax Reform Proposal
Two key recommendations proposed by Hartford’s Property Tax Task Force were put on hold last week, including one that would have removed a cap for absentee landlords.
Hartford City Council held off approval of a task force proposal that would have increased the tax burden on absentee landlords. Currently, all housing properties, owner-occupied or not, are protected by a law that keeps their tax increases at only 3.5 percent a year. The task force recommended removing that cap and forcing absentee landlords to pay more, thereby easing the burden on commercial property owners.
Richard Wareing, head of the task force, said this was a key component of the group’s work. But the council and others were concerned that raising taxes on landlords might in turn cause them to raise rents for tenants, Wareing said.
Councilman Pedro Segarra, who presided over a lengthy committee meeting on the subject, said the council needed more time to assess the proposal’s effects on rental rates and the possibility that landlords would allow their buildings to become blighted as a result of higher taxes.
“We have some very legitimate and important questions that need to be addressed,” he said.
The council also held back a resolution that would have advocated for the state to do property tax revaluations annually, instead of every five years. The task force’s report states that having annual revaluations would ease taxes up slowly instead of creating the kind of dramatic jumps in taxes that create political unrest.
Segarra said that despite those concerns, the council will ask the state’s General Assembly to advocate for a number of other benefits, including:
• Fully-funded payments in lieu of taxes (PILOT) program. The state currently partially compensates Hartford because of the city’s high concentration of non-taxable state, cultural, educational, religious and other institutions, but the task force recommends full funding.
• Restoration of the Housing Property Tax Abatement Program, which had provided about $1 million a year to the city.
• Continued taxing of telecommunications companies for their power lines and equipment. As of next year, a depreciated tax on those items will prevent the city from collecting money from them.
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