TAX NEWS - June 2010

Norton turns down Wheaton tax plan

NORTON - A proposed local tax on Wheaton College to provide property tax relief has failed.

Voters at Monday night's annual town meeting denied a proposal asking Norton to petition the Legislature for special legislation imposing the tax.

Supporters of the citizen petition wanted all post-secondary institutions of higher learning located all or partly in town to pay 1 percent of the yearly total cost of tuition, room and board, and mandatory fees. Schools partly in Norton would have paid based on full-time student equivalents.

Finance committee member and retired Wheaton history professor Paul Helmreich said he would have supported the plan "if Wheaton had not entered into an agreement with the town" during the 1960s to pay property taxes on land not used for education.

"This will not have a chance in the Legislature," Helmreich said. "You'll have every nonprofit institution in the Commonwealth coming in on the Legislature on this." Lead organizer John Freeman said Wheaton would have paid Norton about $766,000 under the tax. He said the college will pay about $117,000 in taxes this year. "The amount they pay doesn't even pay one administrator's salary."

The tax would save the average homeowner about $100 each year, "not enough money to make or break your year, but an awful nice feeling for people who have lived in the state all their life to see their taxes cut," Freeman said.

Freeman said Pittsburgh considered a similar tax last fall.

"I think in this case, Norton could probably lead the Commonwealth and possibly lead a big part of the country in instituting this to help the working people," Freeman said.