Massachusetts Statutes

Section 15. The following interest, charges and fees, and no other, when accrued, shall severally be added to the amount of the tax and collected as a part thereof:— 1. For interest, as provided by law; 2. For each written demand provided for by law, not more than $30; 3. For pre…

Section 15B. (a) Notwithstanding sections 53 and 55 of chapter 44, a city or town that accepts this section may establish a tax title collection revolving fund pursuant to subsection (c) for 1 or more of the following officers: tax collector, treasurer and treasurer-collector. Su…

Section 16. The collector shall, before selling the land of a resident or non-resident or distraining the goods of any person, serve on the person a statement of the amount thereof with a demand for its payment. If 2 or more parcels of land are assessed in the name of a resident,…

Section 17. If any tax, betterment or special assessment remains unpaid fourteen days after demand therefor, the collector, in the case of any tax, betterment or special assessment upon real estate, within two years from April first in the calendar year in which the assessment wa…

Section 19. If the assessors are of the opinion that the credit of a person taxed is doubtful or that he is about to leave the commonwealth, they may, by a special warrant, direct the collector forthwith, without demand or notice, to compel payment by distress or imprisonment, wh…

Section 2. Every collector of taxes, constable, sheriff or deputy sheriff, receiving a tax list and warrant from the assessors, shall collect the taxes therein set forth, with interest, and pay over said taxes and interest to the city or town treasurer according to the warrant, a…

Section 20. If a person claims the benefit of an abatement, he shall exhibit to the collector demanding his taxes the certificate of such abatement authorized by section seventy of chapter fifty-nine; and he shall be liable for all costs and officers' fees incurred before exhibit…

Section 21. If, in the assessors' lists or in their warrant and list committed to the collector, there is an error in the name of a person taxed, the tax assessed to him may be collected of the person intended to be assessed, if he is taxable and can be identified by the assessor…

Section 22. After the commitment of a tax, including assessments for betterments or other purposes, to a collector for collection, the owner of the estate or person assessed or a person in behalf of said owner or person may, if the tax is a tax upon real estate, at any time and f…

Section 22A. The collector may, and shall at the request at any time of a person owning or having an interest in a parcel of land, issue a separate tax bill or notice for the tax for any year upon any parcel of land separately assessed or separately listed on the assessors' valua…

Section 23. The collector of taxes for any city, or for any town having more than five thousand inhabitants, as determined by the last preceding national or state census, shall, on written application by any person, and within ten days thereafter, excluding Saturdays, Sundays and…

Section 23A. In any city or town accepting the provisions of this section, prior to January first, nineteen hundred and eighty-eight, the collector of taxes shall furnish a certificate of liens as provided in section twenty-three according to the following fee schedule: for land …

Section 23B. In any city or town accepting the provisions of this section, the collector of taxes shall furnish a certificate of liens as provided in section twenty-three according to the following fee schedule: for land of less than one acre upon which there is no permanent stru…

Section 24. If a person refuses or neglects to pay his tax for fourteen days after demand, and after a warrant to collect and a warrant to distrain or commit is issued pursuant to section twenty-nine, the collector may without unnecessary delay levy the same by distress, or seizu…

Section 25. The collector may keep the goods distrained, at the expense of the owner and, if they are not redeemed by payment by the owner or his agent of the tax due, shall within thirty days after the seizure, sell them by public auction for a payment of the tax and charges of …

Section 26. The collector may once adjourn such sale for not more than three days, and he shall forthwith post a notice of such adjournment at the place of sale.

Section 27. If a person is taxed for land in his occupation, but of which he is not the owner, the collector, or his designee, after demand for payment, the issuance of the warrant to collect, and the issuance of the warrant to distrain or commit pursuant to section twenty-nine, …

Section 28. The collector shall upon demand give a written account of every sale on distress or seizure and charges, and pay to the owner any surplus above the taxes, interest and charges of keeping and sale.

Section 29. If a person refuses or neglects to pay his tax for fourteen days after demand, the collector shall issue a warrant to collect said tax including interest, charges and fees. A warrant issued under this section may be signed by the collector or his deputy, and a facsimi…

Section 2A. The collector, with the approval of the city council in cities, the board of selectmen in towns and the town council in municipalities having a town council form of government, is hereby authorized to enter into agreements for a term of not more than three years with …

Section 2B. For the purposes of collecting municipal taxes, the collector is authorized to enter into agreements with one or more private persons, companies, associations or corporations doing business in the commonwealth to provide collection services with respect to unpaid muni…

Section 2C. (a) For the purposes of this section, the following words shall have the following meaning: ''Appropriate financial official'', the treasurer or collector of a municipality. ''Available funds deficit'', the amount by which the funds certified by the director of accoun…

Section 3. The collector shall immediately, after receiving a tax list and warrant send notice to each person assessed, resident or non-resident, of the amount of the person's tax. If the notice is mailed, it shall be postpaid and directed to the assessed person at the person's r…

Section 30. A collector who commits a person to jail pursuant to a warrant to distrain or commit shall give to the keeper thereof a certificate signed by him stating that he has committed the person for nonpayment of his tax and for want of goods and chattels whereof to make dist…

Section 31. The notice required by chapter two hundred and twenty-four to be given to a creditor may be given to any one of the assessors or to the collector of the city or town where the tax was assessed, any of whom may appear at the examination and do all other things which a …

Section 32. The collector shall be liable for the tax and the charges of imprisonment of a person discharged, unless he arrested and committed such person within two years after the tax was committed to him for collection, or unless he shall be exonerated therefrom by the town to…

Section 33. A collector who is resisted or impeded in the exercise of the duties of his office may require any suitable person to aid him.

Section 34. If a tax assessed upon a person remains unpaid for fourteen days after demand therefor, a warrant to collect shall issue, and, thereafter, a warrant to distrain or commit may issue pursuant to section twenty-nine; but a collector or his designee to whom the court issu…

Section 34A. A person shall not be committed to jail for the non-payment of a tax, nor shall a person so committed be further detained therein, if he gives to the collector or to the officer charged with the service of the collector's warrant a bond running to the collector suffi…

Section 35. If a tax which has been committed to a collector remains unpaid after it has become due and payable, it may be recovered in an action of contract or in any other appropriate action, suit or proceeding brought by the collector either in his own name or in the name of t…

Section 36. If a person assessed for a tax dies or becomes insolvent before the payment thereof, or if a tax is assessed upon the estate of a deceased person, the executor, administrator or assignee shall, if a demand has been made on him therefor, forthwith on receipt of any mon…

Section 37. Taxes assessed upon land, including those assessed under sections twelve, thirteen and fourteen of chapter fifty-nine, shall with all incidental charges and fees be a lien thereon from January first in the year of assessment. Except as provided in section sixty-one, s…

Section 37A. If at any time while a lien established by section thirty-seven of this chapter or under chapter eighty or chapter eighty-three is in force, a sale or taking cannot in the opinion of the collector be legally made because of any federal or state law or because of any …

Section 37B. The collector of taxes shall certify in writing to the board of assessors the amounts necessary for the taking of land under the provisions of section thirty-seven. The board of assessors shall include the amounts so certified in computing the amount to be raised und…

Section 38. If a mortgagee of land situated in the place of his residence, before July first of the year in which the tax is assessed, gives written notice to the collector that he holds a mortgage on land, with a description of the land, the demand for payment shall be made on t…

Section 39. If a mortgagee or an owner of land causes a notice, designating a place in the town where such land lies at which all papers relative to taxes on such land which are to be served on him may be left, to be recorded in January of any year in the office of the clerk of s…

Section 3A. (a) Each bill or notice shall be in a form approved by the commissioner and shall summarize the deadlines under section 59 of chapter 59 for applying for abatements and exemptions. Each bill or notice shall also have printed on it the last date for the assessed owner …

Section 3C. Any city or town which accepts the provisions of this section or has previously accepted chapter one hundred and ninety-four of the acts of nineteen hundred and eighty-six is hereby authorized, subject to the approval of the commissioner, to design and designate a pla…

Section 3D. A city or town which accepts the provisions of this section is hereby authorized, subject to the approval of the commissioner, to design and designate a place on its municipal tax bills, or the motor vehicle excise tax bills, or to mail with such tax bills a separate …

Section 3E. Partial payments of bills for taxes, excises or municipal charges and fees, including partial payments under sections 22 and 62, shall be applied first to any interest due, then to collection charges, that have been added to the bills, unless the amount of the interes…

Section 3F. A city, town or district that accepts this section may designate a place on its municipal property tax bills or motor vehicle excise bills or mail with such bills a separate form whereby taxpayers of the city, town or district may voluntarily check off, donate and ple…

Section 40. The collector shall give notice by publication of the time and place of sale of land for nonpayment of taxes. Such notice shall contain a substantially accurate description of the several rights, lots or divisions of the land to be sold, which shall be furnished to th…

Section 41. If land to be sold is situated in a town the name of which has been changed by law within three years preceding the sale, the collector shall designate such town in his notices of the sale by both its former and existing name.

Section 42. The collector shall, fourteen days before the sale, post a notice similar to that required by section forty in two or more convenient and public places.

Section 43. If the taxes are not paid, the collector shall, at the time and place appointed for the sale, sell by public auction, for the amount of the taxes and interest, if any, and necessary intervening charges, the smallest undivided part of the land which will bring said amo…

Section 44. The collector may adjourn the sale from time to time not exceeding seven days in all, and shall give notice of every adjournment by a public declaration thereof at the time and place appointed for the sale.