Chapter 59

Section 4. Except as provided in the following section and in chapters sixty-two and sixty-three, personal estate for the purpose of taxation shall include: First, Goods, chattels, money and effects, wherever they are; ships and vessels and their equipment at home or abroad, exce…

Section 40. Every board of assessors shall, as and when required by the commissioner, furnish him with any and all information in its knowledge or possession relating to any property, the value of which he is required to determine by the preceding section.

Section 41. Every telephone company owning any property required to be valued by the commissioner under section 39 shall annually, on or before March 1, make a return to the commissioner signed and sworn to by its treasurer. The commissioner may, for cause shown, authorize a late…

Section 42. If any company, or any treasurer thereof, shall in any year, fail to make the return required by section forty-one, the commissioner shall estimate the value of the property of the company according to his best information and belief.

Section 42A. For the purpose of verifying that an owner of a pipeline or a telephone or telegraph company required to make a return under section 38A or section 41 has made a complete and accurate accounting of the property required to be returned, the commissioner shall have all…

Section 43. The assessors shall make, on the books furnished as provided in section forty-five, a list of the valuation and the assessment thereon, in the following manner: In each column provided in the book or books so furnished shall be entered the valuation of that portion, i…

Section 44. The list shall exhibit the valuation, classification and assessment of the estates of the inhabitants assessed; and the valuation, classification and assessment of the estates of nonresident owners, and shall contain the names of the nonresident owners of the property…

Section 45. Each city or town shall provide, on or before January first, annually, suitable books for the use of its assessors in the assessment of taxes, which shall contain blank columns with uniform headings for a valuation list, in the form the commissioner shall, from time t…

Section 46. The assessors shall enter in the books so furnished the valuation, classification and assessment of the estates of the persons assessed, as directed in the headings of the various columns and shall state the value of each building described, including therein water wh…

Section 5. The following property shall be exempt from taxation and the date of determination as to age, ownership or other qualifying factors required by any clause shall be July 1 of each year unless another meaning is clearly apparent from the context; provided, however, that …

Section 50. The books or records required by section 45 shall contain a copy of this section, sections 43, 44, 45 and 46, and the certificates required by law to be signed by the assessors, with any explanatory notes as the commissioner considers necessary to secure uniformity of…

Section 51. The assessors shall enter upon the valuation list, in the appropriate columns after the enumeration of the persons and estates liable to taxation therein contained, a statement and description of all the property and estate, with the fair cash value thereof, which is …

Section 52. The assessors, or other persons authorized to assess taxes, shall, at the end of said valuation list, subscribe the following statement: We, the assessors (or other persons so authorized, as the case may be,) of , do severally state, that the foregoing list is a full …

Section 52A. The assessors, upon receiving for their general use, newly completed or revised plans showing locations of boundaries of real property in the city or town, shall deliver copies of such plans to the land court department of the trial court.

Section 52B. All information collected pursuant to section 8A of chapter 58A and sections 38D, 38E, 57D and 61A of this chapter shall be open to the inspection of the assessors, the commissioner, the deputies, clerks and assistants of either the assessors or the commissioner and …

Section 52C. The provisions of section ten of chapter sixty-six shall not be deemed to authorize public access to terminals or other data processing equipment for the purpose of copying, reading, collecting, printing, analyzing or manipulating any data or other information collec…

Section 53. The assessors shall, within a reasonable time, commit the tax list with their warrant to the collector of taxes, and, if there is a fire, water, light or improvement district in the town, they shall commit to him a separate list and warrant for the district taxes. If …

Section 54. The tax list committed to the collector shall be in a form approved by the commissioner and shall contain such data appearing on the assessors' valuation list as may be required for the purposes of sections three and three A of chapter sixty.

Section 55. The warrant shall specify the duties of the collector as prescribed by law in the collection of taxes, the times when and the person to whom he shall pay them, shall be substantially in the form heretofore used, and need not be under seal.

Section 56. If a warrant issued for the collection of taxes is lost or destroyed, the assessors may issue a new warrant therefor, which shall have the same force and effect as the original warrant.

Section 57. Except as otherwise provided, bills for real estate and personal property taxes shall be sent out seasonably upon commitment in every city, town and district in which the same are assessed, and shall be due and payable on July first of each year for all purposes excep…

Section 57A. In any city or town that accepts this section, notwithstanding sections 23D, 57 or 57C, a notice of preliminary tax or actual tax bill for real estate or personal property taxes, in an amount not in excess of $100, shall be due and payable in 1 installment and if unp…

Section 57C. This section shall be applicable in any city or town which accepts this section for the purpose of establishing quarterly tax payments or semi-annual tax payments, notwithstanding section 57. Except as otherwise provided, a notice of preliminary tax for real estate a…

Section 57D. A notice of preliminary, estimated or actual tax for real estate and personal property shall include an affidavit of address, to be signed and sworn to by the owner of record of such property. The affidavit shall include the following information: name of the owner, …

Section 58. In any city or town that accepts the provisions of this section, on all property taxes assessed in a city or town and collected by a city or town tax collector, discounts for the early and full payment thereof shall be three percent if the taxpayer pays the entire tax…

Section 58A. No abatement or refund of property tax, real or personal, shall be granted or paid in an amount less than one dollar.

Section 59. A person upon whom a tax has been assessed or the personal representative of the estate of such person or the personal representative or trustee under the will of such person, if aggrieved by such tax, may, except as hereinafter otherwise provided, on or before the la…

Section 59A. Municipalities may establish, relative to sites or portions of sites from or at which there has been a release of oil or hazardous material, an agreement between the city or town and any eligible person, as defined in section 2 of chapter 21E, regarding the abatement…

Section 5B. Any person of a city or town aggrieved by a determination of the board of assessors as to the eligibility or noneligibility of a corporation or trust for the exemption granted pursuant to the clause Third of section five may appeal therefrom by filing a petition with …

Section 5C. With respect to each parcel of real property classified as Class One, residential, in each city or town certified by the commissioner to be assessing all property at its full and fair cash valuation, and at the option of the board of selectmen or mayor, with the appro…

Section 5D. Property held by a city, town or district, including property held by or for the watershed system of the division of watershed management of the metropolitan district commission, and the waterworks system of the Massachusetts Water Resources Authority, as successors t…

Section 5E. The assessors of a city or town where land is acquired by such other city, town or district for water supply or sewage disposal or for a public airport shall, within one year after such acquisition, determine the average valuation of such land under section five D and…

Section 5F. Land acquired on or after January first, nineteen hundred and forty-six, by a municipality or a district including land held by or for the watershed system of the division of watershed management and by or for the waterworks system of the Massachusetts Water Resources…

Section 5G. The Massachusetts Water Resources Authority, on July first of each year, shall pay over to the division of watershed management, an amount to be held in trust for payment to each city or town in which property of the Quabbin watershed, Wachusett Watershed, Sudbury Wat…

Section 5H. The state treasurer, acting for and on behalf of the commonwealth, shall on July first of each year pay to the municipality in which land regulated under section one hundred and seven A of chapter ninety-two is located, and which is not held by the division or by the …

Section 5I. With respect to each parcel of real property classified as class three, commercial, in each city or town certified by the commissioner to be assessing all property at its full and fair cash valuation, and at the option of the board of selectmen or mayor, with the appr…

Section 5J. A city or town, by adoption of an ordinance or by-law, may establish a special assessment policy for the substantial rehabilitation of owner-occupied residential properties listed in the state register of historic places, either individually or as contributing element…

Section 5K. In any city or town which accepts the provisions of this section, the board of selectmen of a town or in a municipality having a town council form of government, the town council or the mayor with the approval of the city council in a city may establish a program to a…

Section 5L. Upon acceptance of this section by a municipality and notwithstanding any other provision of this chapter to the contrary, any taxes due under this chapter by a member of the Massachusetts National Guard or reservist or a dependent of a member of the Massachusetts Nat…

Section 5M. A gateway municipality, as defined in section 1 of chapter 40V, may, by vote of its legislative body, subject to the charter of the municipality, establish an exemption in an amount not less than 10 per cent and not more than 100 per cent of the incremental value of t…

Section 5N. In any city or town which accepts this section, the board of selectmen of a town, or in a municipality having a town council form of government, the town council or the mayor, with the approval of the city council in a city, may establish a program to allow veterans, …

Section 5O. (a) In any city or town that accepts this section, the board of selectmen or select board of the town, the town council of a municipality having a town council form of government, the city manager, with the approval of the city council, in the case of a city with a pl…

Section 60. Every board of assessors shall record all abatements of taxes. The record of abatement of the whole or any part of any tax shall be signed by a majority of the board and shall show plainly the following details: First, The name or title in which the tax stands assesse…

Section 61. A person shall not have an abatement of a tax imposed upon his personal property subject to taxation, except as otherwise provided, unless he has brought in to the assessors a list of his personal estate as required by section 29 and complied with any requests by the …