Understanding Your Vermont Property Tax
If you know your property's assessed value, there doesn't have to be any guessing about what your property tax bill might look like.
Vermont property taxes are influenced by assessment values, homestead rates, nonhomestead rates, district rates, and the Common Level of Appraisal (CLA). Most property owners do not spend their time reading tax statutes, municipal reports, and Department of Taxes guidance documents.
I’m seeing a lot of discussion about how Vermont’s property tax system works.
Fortunately, a tool already exists that can help.
Some people believe reassessments won’t increase taxes.
Some believe rates will adjust enough to offset higher assessments.
Some believe tax bills will rise substantially.
Rather than debating hypothetical scenarios, property owners can use currently published municipal tax rates along with their new assessed values to estimate potential tax impacts.
Joe Shimkus has assembled published Vermont municipal tax rates into a Vermont Tax Comparison Tool that helps property owners estimate property taxes using current town tax rates.
Fill out the Vermont Property Tax Calculator
At the same time, VT4VT is collecting anonymous reassessment data from property owners across Vermont.
We are currently tracking data from 26 Vermont municipalities and continuing to expand the dataset as reassessments occur across the state.
Reported reassessment increases currently include:
• Winhall: +343%
• Colchester: +123%
• Cambridge: +110%
• Barre City: +105%
• Danville: +104%
• Royalton: +100%
• Essex: +78%
• Calais: +59%
Additional Resources
These figures represent reassessments reported directly by Vermont property owners through the VT4VT survey.
If your town has not yet reassessed, you can compare these reported increases against your current assessment using the calculator and published municipal tax rates.
VT Tax Comparison Tool and Calculator
If your town has already reassessed, please consider completing the anonymous VT4VT survey.
For readers who want to dig deeper, the following resources provide the underlying tax rates, tax credit information, legislation, and assessment data referenced throughout this article.
Vermont Municipal Tax Rates
https://tax.vermont.gov/property/property-tax-rates
Vermont Property Tax Credit Information
https://tax.vermont.gov/property/property-tax-credit
Vermont Property Tax Credit Calculator
https://tax.vermont.gov/property/property-tax-credit-calculator-and-estimator
Act 68 of 2023
https://legislature.vermont.gov/bill/status/2024/H.480
Vermont Department of Taxes
https://tax.vermont.gov/property
Vermont Grand List and Assessment Information
https://tax.vermont.gov/property/municipal-officials/grand-lists
Past Articles:
VT4VT Reassessment Survey
FILL OUT THE REASSESSMENT SURVEY
VT4VT LAND Act Proposal
Land ACT
VT4VT Property Tax Articles
PROPERTY TAX ARTICLE
Your health in filling out the survey would be greatly appreciated. Also let me know if you found this tool to be useful and or if you need me to find a different one. Thanks