Full and original article posted on Worcester Magazine
Is Worcester’s business community in a tailspin, with companies abandoning the city in droves for greener pastures? Or is that something people only bring up once a year to try to get a better commercial tax rate? And do tax rates have to go up at all? All those questions and more were left unanswered by the City Council when they requested numbers for an alternate way to meet the city’s revenue needs and pushed a tax classification vote off by a week.
The change in plans was driven by AtLarge Councilor Mike Gaffney, who suggested the city had underestimated the amount of money that would come in through local receipts – using vehicle excise tax as an example – and by increasing those estimates to be more in line with historic trends, the city could reduce the amount of money it needs to raise via property taxes and leave tax rates where they are.
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