Press
Release
May 15,
2007
For
Immediate Release
CONTACT: Judy Aron, Vice
President of
860-523-7257
WHTA Provides Tax Calculator To Town Residents
The West Hartford Taxpayers Association, through the work of
Alfred Masciocchi, one
of its members, has provided a Microsoft Excel Worksheet to residents so that
they can calculate their home property taxes. All one has to do is go to
the website, www.whta.org, have the ability
to run Microsoft Excel on their computer, and know what their old and new
assessments are. After plugging in the values of the old and new
assessments, the spreadsheet automatically figures out the rest.
For residents whose assessment has gone up 25% or more, the calculator figures out your 2007 tax as well as the 5
year phase in amounts. The calculator also calculates your home property
tax even if your assessment is below a 25% increase, and since there is no
phase in the assessment , the assessment amount
remains constant over the subsequent 4 years.
There are three columns of scenarios for future tax after
2007 that also is shown for the 5 year phase in amounts. One column shows a
mill rate used of 39.39 mills for all years. The second column shows the
scenario promoted by The Town Council who have stated that the mill rate might
fall to as low as 29.17 in the 5th year of the phase in, as
assessments increase, assuming there is no spending increase(s). However,
there is no guarantee that this will occur, and annual increases in the budget
(including additional MDC costs in future years) will push the mill rate up, or
prevent it from falling which will likely result in higher taxes. There is a
third column that shows what taxes might be if there is a 2.5% cap put on
budget spending increases using a mill rate that grades down to 32.20.
The WHTA has this calculator available on it’s website at www.whta.org on the “What’s New” webpage, as
well as “Eye On West Hartford” and “Town Budget”
webpage.
The West Hartford Taxpayers Association is non-partisan
association dedicated to the proposition that Town Government can be operated
efficiently to provide needed services at a fair cost to the Citizens of West
Hartford. It has been in existence since 1933. For additional information
visit the West Hartford Taxpayers Association web site at http://whta.org/ or contact WHTA President Theresa
McGrath at president@whta.org or
860-570-1203, or WHTA Vice-President Judy Aron at vpresident@whta.org or call 860-523-7257.