We are in the process of distributing updates for Avitar Assessing and Tax Collect that, among other things, enable proper calculation and presentation of property tax bills for municipalities that have adopted the RSA 72:81 Commercial & Industrial Construction Exemption. If…

1. Your municipality has adopted the RSA 72:81 Commercial & Industrial Construction Exemption,
2. And your municipality has granted one of these exemptions,
3. And you export your tax bill information to have your property tax bills printed off-site or presented online by a third-party vendor,

… then you and your third-party vendor need to be aware of a few things so keep reading. If all three of the above statements do not apply to you then you can stop reading — enjoy the rest of your day.

What is the RSA 72:81 Commercial & Industrial Construction Exemption?

With the most recent update of Avitar Assessing, we have added the ability to maintain the Commercial and Industrial Construction Exemption authorized by RSA 72:81. The intent of the exemption is to provide incentives to businesses to build, rebuild, modernize, or enlarge within the municipality. Qualifying parcels will receive the exemption for a specified percentage of the increase in assessment which results from the new construction for a maximum period of ten years.

Why Is This Exemption Any Different Than Other Exemptions? (i.e. Who Cares?)

The 72:81 exemption applies only to municipal and local school property taxes assessed by the municipality — i.e. the state and county still want their money for the State Education and County components of your total tax rate, regardless of any breaks you’ve granted to local businesses. As such, these 72:81 exemptions need to be applied selectively when calculating property tax bills for any parcel receiving one.

So Why Did Avitar Single Out Those of Us Printing Bills Off-Site?

As noted above, we are in the process of distributing updates for Avitar Assessing and Tax Collect. The Assessing update will enable Avitar Assessing to both maintain these 72:81 exemptions and calculate the corresponding tax bills properly. The Avitar Tax Collect update will enable property tax bills calculated in Avitar Assessing with 72:81 exemptions to be displayed and printed properly — i.e. there are additional messages on the tax bills printed out of Avitar Tax Collect to indicate to 72:81 exemption recipients that the exemptions do not apply to the State Education or County portions of their tax bills.

However, if you export data from Avitar Tax Collect to have your property tax bills printed off-site by a third-party vendor and your municipality has adopted the 72:81 exemption then you will need to contact your third-party tax bill printing vendor to verify that they are aware of the RSA change and the impacts it may have on your printed tax bills. We will be including the exemption amount in the export file as follows:

• The column named “EXEMPT1” will have the value “7281” if the exemption has been applied.
• The column named “EXEM1VALU” will indicate the corresponding dollar amount of the exemption.

Beyond that it is up to you and your printing vendor to ensure that the correct information is being conveyed to the taxpayer on the tax bill. This is particularly important if your vendor performs any reverse calculations or voodoo math to work backwards to try to display the nominal dollar amount being billed for each component of the tax rate. If a parcel has a 72:81 exemption and your vendor is doing math and they are not aware of this RSA change, their math and the bill will be wrong.

Let us know if you have any questions.