Many Concord homeowners were shocked by their tax bills. Demand for homes due to urban escapees and low interest rates caused a steep increase in assessments, which is good if you are selling a home but bad if you just want to live there.

Many landlords are selling their rental homes as they think this is a real estate bubble and they’ll never see these prices again. Unfortunately, the city has been giving unfair breaks to owners of commercial property so residential property is paying a higher share of city expenses at the same time businesses are getting more of those services.

For example, free space for outdoor dining, and money from canceled fireworks being diverted to businesses. If you want to appeal your taxes either because your assessment is too high or you can’t afford to pay them, the deadline is March 1.

Property tax is supposed to be a wealth tax based on the value of your property not an income tax, but for some commercial property the city bases value not on comparable sale prices but on the income it produces. (But they still make an owner of a vacant lot pay tax although it produces no income and the zoning board doesn’t even allow him to park his vehicles on it.)

The income value of a property is based on the income from future years discounted by an appropriate rate. If a 5% discount rate is used with the property becoming worthless after 20 years, the amount of this year’s income would be about 8% of the total, while if the property will last 50 years using a discount rate of 1% (similar to long-term U.S. Treasury rate) this year’s income would be only 2.6% of the value.

But city assessments are based on only one or four years income, which vastly undertaxes property if based on one year’s unusually low income.

What is even worse is the special breaks given to business. Apparently the city has never bothered to allocate the general contractor’s expense on burying the South Main Street utilities, so over $1 million in utility property is going untaxed. A developer bought a property for $400,000 but convinced the city council it was worth only $254,300 and got them to freeze the assessment for nine years plus a bonus year. He then sold the property for $420,000.

There will be a city council hearing on March 8 on real property assessment if you want to suggest that commercial property needs to be taxed fairly.

The worst are the special breaks given to developers. In most of this state and this country, developers requesting infrastructure improvements are expected to pay a substantial portion of the cost out of the increased value of their land. The city of Lebanon got maybe $1 million from the new Dartmouth-Hitchcock Hospital in spite of the high-paying jobs it offered. Concord used to do this, like with the Steeplegate Mall, but more recently has let taxpayers foot nearly the entire bill, so developers add excess features they aren’t paying for and keep their profits.

Property taxes on the development go to paying off the bonds instead of for police, fire, schools, etc., so others have to pay those bills, and even once the bonds are paid off in 20 years the money may go to other goodies for the developer instead of the general fund.

For the proposed Penacook grocery store, the developer will pay none of the $4,330,750 cost of the Concord portion of the project but 100% of the $449,250 cost of the Canterbury portion of the project. This is also a public hearing on March 8 if you think developers should pay their fair share.

(Roy Schweiker lives in Concord.)