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Write Ahead, Wellesley

How to pay your Wellesley property taxes, right now

December 22, 2017 by Deborah Brown 5 Comments

Wellesley Town Hall, by Janice Hayes-Cha. Mixed media collage.

As has been reported by multiple news sources, the time to pay your Feb. 1 and May 1 2018 property taxes is now. As of right now, and in Wellesley that means by the Dec. 29 deadline. The rationale behind this idea generally goes like this:

Given that next year’s property and state income taxes will be limited to a $10,000 deduction, if you currently itemize, and have in excess of $10,000 in combined local property tax and state income tax, you will want to pay your third and fourth quarter taxes.

That means you should pay your Feb. 1, 2018 and May 1, 2018 taxes now so that you can deduct those taxes in  2017. Do it now, the reasoning goes, because next year you won’t be able to deduct them.

There are three ways to pay your property taxes in Wellesley:

  1. You can pay your property taxes online.
  2. You can pay by check and drop the payment in the mail.
  3. If you have trust issues with snail mail, you can write out your check and run it over to the payment box in front of Town Hall, or go right in and go to the Treasure’s office downstairs and hand it to a live person. They also take cash. Do not put cash into the payment box.

Paying ahead will benefit those who pay local property taxes of $10,000 and over (which describes most homeowners in Wellesley) in addition to paying $10,000 in state income taxes for a combined $20,000. Under the new tax bill, next year you would be limited to deducting only $10,000.  However, paying the second half of FY18 property taxes of $5,000 in 2017 will allow you to deduct them this year, and yield a savings equal to your tax rate.

Thus if you are at a 20% tax rate you would save 20%, or $1,000.  The savings only get larger with higher tax bills and higher tax rates.  You can do this even if your taxes are paid from a mortgage escrow.  The reason you can do this is that the tax bill is technically due and owed now, even though we are allowed to pay in quarterly installments.

You can’t prepay and deduct payments that aren’t yet due on next year’s state income, or FY2019 property tax, so this is one-time event linked to paying off the balance of the FY2018 tax bill.

I emailed a few questions to Wellesley’s Treasurer, Marc Waldman, but got an auto response that he would be out of the office until Dec. 28, one day before all the emails and questions from residents and reporters will surely end with the deadline of Dec. 29.

So I stopped in to Wellesley Town Hall, just to feel the vibe in the air of the normally quiet tax payments office (first floor, end of the hall, take a right). I followed the crowd and walked into a scene from a movie. Phones were ringing. Town employees were multi-tasking. Property owners had their checkbooks out and were intently writing multiple loopy zeros and crisply handing over thousands of dollars, on the spot, having had very little advance heads up — and here’s the kicker — three days before Christmas. Welcome to Wellesley.

I didn’t go in for tax advice. It’s a good thing, because the incredibly efficient employee I spoke to told me, “We cannot give tax advice.”

She did confirm the payment options, however, then thanked a resident who had just handed over a payment, stamped her receipt, and wished her happy holidays.

As the old English nursery rhyme goes:

“Half a pound of tuppenny rice
Half a pound of treacle
That’s the way the money goes 
Pop goes the weasel.”

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Filed Under: Government, Houses, Real estate

Comments

  1. Dennis Noonan says

    December 22, 2017 at 3:48 pm

    I think it also makes sense for those who pay under 10K in taxes to pay ahead before Jan 1. Assuming that you are itemizing in 2017, but will take the standard 24K deduction next year. Adding another 5 or 10K to your itemized deduction this year can lower your 2017 taxes by up to 1K. Worth considering if you can scrape up the cash by Jan 1.

    Reply
  2. Alex Keally says

    December 23, 2017 at 8:51 am

    This is one of the best written articles about this subject that I’ve been able to find. Thank you for the clear and concise advice!

    Reply
  3. Bill says

    December 23, 2017 at 12:59 pm

    If you paid the AMT tax last year which I am sure is a large % of Wellesley residents and assuming you made the same amount this year, don’t do this. Property tax does NOT offset AMT liability so doing this move would be pointless!

    Reply
  4. Sarah M says

    December 23, 2017 at 4:50 pm

    Bill is 100% correct. Great idea however a Wellesley family who pays AMT (most families I would assume), would get no tax benefit by doing this in 2017. Whether a family has 50k in property taxes or 2k, if you are in AMT range, you can’t deduct any property tax per the AMT law.

    Reply
  5. Jim Foley says

    December 27, 2017 at 7:24 pm

    According to Forbes, there is one 10,000 limit that applies to the deduction for all state and local taxes, not two limits for state and local separately. Link: http://bit.ly/2li0imw

    Reply

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