Marblehead’s 2025 Property Tax Explained

Marblehead’s property tax rate for Fiscal Year 2025 (July 1, 2024- June 30, 2025) has been set at $9.05, slightly up from $8.96 in FY 2024.

The formula for calculating the property tax is: take the $ amount of the previous year’s Tax Levy, add 2.5% for Proposition 2 1/2, and also add any New Growth (such as new construction or a condo conversion). This figure is the new tax levy. To this figure is added debt service – the Principal and Interest payable on the town’s debt – to produce the total Tax Levy.

The tax rate is then calculated by dividing the Tax Levy by the Assessed Value of property – and, crucially, that calculation is based upon prices as of January 1, 2024, using date from sales in calendar year 2023.  What that means is that 2024 sales are used for the calculation of the tax rate in FY2026 – not FY2025.

Here are the numbers for Fiscal Years 2024 and 2025, remembering that FY 2025 runs from July 2024 to June 2025:

The Tax Levy calculation
The dollar amount raised by the property tax will increase year by year. That is because of the formula: last year’s number plus 2.5% plus new growth. In the table above you can see how the FY 2024 tax levy of $71,416,980 becomes the base for FY 2025. Add $1,785,425 for Prop 2.5% and $324,437 for new growth and the new figure is $73,526,842. To this number is added the debt service of $10,913,654 – to give a total amount to be raised of $84,440,496.

The Tax Rate (more…)