SENATE, No. 1789

SECTION 1. Section 2A(b) of chapter fifty-nine is amended by adding the following new paragraph: 

“Class one A, Senior Primary Residence”, property used or held for human habitation containing one or more dwelling units designed and used for living, sleeping, cooking and eating on a non-transient basis, including without limitation a single family residence, condominium, multi-family home of not more than 2 units, or bed and breakfast home with no more than three rooms for rent..  Such property includes accessory land, buildings or improvements incidental to such habitation and used exclusively by the residents of the property or their guests.  Such property shall include a dwelling unit owned and occupied by an individual taxpayer or by joint married taxpayers as the principal residence and domicile of the taxpayer(s) for income tax purposes; the individual taxpayer or one or both of the joint married taxpayers shall be recipients of Social Security retirement benefits or a government pension; such benefits must represent at least seventy-five percent of the total income derived by the individual taxpayer or joint married taxpayers from all sources; and the total assets held by the individual taxpayer or joint married taxpayers shall be limited to $150,000 not including the value of said primary residence. 

SECTION 2.   Section 5(C) of chapter fifty-nine is amended by adding the following new second paragraph: 

Section 5C. In any city or town which is certified by the commissioner to be assessing all property at its full and fair cash valuation, the board of selectmen of a town or in a municipality having a town council form of government, the town council, or the mayor with the approval of the city council in a city may establish a program to allow an annual exemption from local property tax on a Class one A, Senior Primary Residence, equal to the difference between the full amount of property tax due and an amount of tax being equal to the previous year’s tax bill indexed by the rate of increase granted by the Social Security Administration, the “Senior Adjusted  Tax”, provided that the sum of all exclusions granted by a city or town under this section for any tax year shall not exceed more than twenty-five per cent of the assessed value of all Class One, residential, parcels within such city or town.  This exemption shall be in addition to any exemptions allowable under section five; provided, however, that in no instance shall the taxable valuation of such property after all applicable exemptions be reduced below fifty per cent of its full and fair cash valuation, except through the applicability of section eight A of chapter fifty-eight and of clause eighteenth of section five. Where, under the provisions of section five, the exemption is based upon an amount of tax rather than on valuation, the reduction of taxable valuation for purposes of the preceding sentence shall be computed by dividing the said amount of tax by the residential class tax rate of the city or town and multiplying the result by one thousand dollars.  Under said program, the total amount of the exemptions granted may shifted to any single class or multiple classes of property, within said city or town, provided that the percentage of tax levy imposed on any single class of property shall not exceed 1.75 times the amount imposed under full and fair cash valuation of all taxable property.  For purposes of this paragraph, ""parcel'' shall mean a unit of real property as defined by the assessors in accordance with the deed for such property and shall include a condominium unit and ownership shall be defined by the deed for such property.

SECTION 3.   Section 5, clause seventeenth D of chapter fifty-nine is amended as follows:

• By substituting “seven hundred and fifty dollars” for “one hundred and seventy five dollars” in line 2 of paragraph first and line 10 of paragraph second;
• By substituting “sixty-five” for “seventy” in line 8 of paragraph first; and
• By substituting “one hundred thousand dollars” for “forty thousand dollars” in line12 of paragraph first.

SECTION 4.   Section 5, clause thirty-seventh A of chapter fifty-nine is amended by substituting “one thousand dollars” for “five hundred dollars” in line one.

SECTION 5.   Section 5, clause forty-first A of chapter fifty-nine is amended as follows:  by substituting the “Federal Discount Rate as set forth on November 1 of each fiscal year for those communities issuing semi-annual property tax bills or January 1 of each year for those communities issuing quarterly property tax bills ” for “rate provided in section sixty-two of chapter sixty” in lines 133 and 134.

 SECTION 6.  Section 5, clause forty-first C of chapter fifty-nine is amended as follows: 

-  By substituting “one hundred thousand dollars of taxable valuation or the sum of one thousand five hundred dollars” for “four thousand dollars of taxable valuation or the sum of five hundred dollars” in lines 1-2 and 38. 

-  By substituting “thirty” for “thirteen” and “forty” for “fifteen” with reference to gross receipts in lines 17-18, 

-  By substituting “one hundred fifty thousand dollars” for “twenty-eight thousand dollars” and “thirty thousand dollars” with reference to whole estate in line 32, 43, 45, 59 and 61.