Ellsworth Assessing Department

Whether you are a residential home owner or a business property owner there are ways you can possibly reduce your tax bill.

Apply for your Exemptions
Make sure you have the Veterans ($6,000) and/or Homestead ($25,000) Exemptions if available to you. There is also a Blind Exemption. Commercial business owners should check to see if they can lower their personal property tax bill by applying for the BETE which stands for Business Equipment Tax Exemption.

Check Your Assessment Card
Get a copy of your property assessment card and check that all the information is correct such as number of baths, number of bedrooms, unfinished or finished basement, acreage, etc.

Condition Changes
Inform the assessor if your property’s condition changes or if you remove or tear down an old barn or shed.

Survey
If your land has been professionally surveyed check to make sure the total acreage on your survey plan matches what is on your assessment card and tax map.

Merge Land Parcels
If you currently receive two tax bills because you have two or more separately assessed parcels you may wish to consider merging them all to form one parcel for tax purposes. This will generally lower your taxes if they are contiguous to one another.

Business Equipment Tax Reimbursement Program
The Business Equipment Tax Reimbursement Program (BETR) is for retail businesses only.  Taxes paid on retail business equipment are reimbursed by the State of Maine.  The reimbursement is for taxes paid for the previous year.  Applications are submitted beginning in August every year with the deadline being the end of December.

Business Equipment Tax Exemption Program
The Business Equipment Tax Exemption Program (BETE) is for non-retail businesses only.  Eligible equipment items are exempt from taxation.  Applications must be submitted every year with your annual true & perfect list declaration.

Tax Abatement
If you have information that will help prove the value is high please bring it to the assessor’s attention and if the assessor agrees you will receive a tax abatement. If the assessor disagrees you may appeal to the local Board of Assessment Review.

Hardship Abatement
If you are having trouble making your tax payments and can provide the City Council evidence of financial pressures you should apply for and may be granted a Hardship Abatement (sometimes referenced as a Poverty Abatement). The City Council will do everything possible to work with and help you to avoid foreclosure.

The tax rate, which is set once a year by the City Council, cannot be appealed. Your valuation, which is set by the Assessor, can be appealed by completing the Assessment Appeals Application Form.

Pursuant to state statute, tax appeals must be filed in writing with the Tax Assessor within 185 days of the commitment of the taxes. Tax appeals must be based upon a claim of over valuation of the property not upon the amount of the tax bill. A taxpayer may only appeal the current assessed value stated on the tax. To apply for an assessment Appeal, complete the Assessment Appeals Application Form.

The Maine Constitution says that property shall be assessed at its “just value.” The courts have interpreted “just value” to mean fair market value or in other words “what the property is worth.” A property’s worth is commonly looked at as “what a willing buyer would pay a willing seller” for a particular piece of property.

Determining the market value of property is no easy task. Local assessors use three basic methods to determine a property’s worth. To find the value of any piece of property the assessor must first know what properties similar to it are selling for, what it would cost today to replace it, how much it takes to operate and keep it in repair, what rent it may earn, and many other dollar facts affecting its value, such as the current rate of interest charged for borrowing the money to buy or build properties like yours.
Using these facts, the assessor can then go about finding the property’s value in three different ways.

SALES COMPARISON APPROACH
The first method compares your property to others that have sold recently. These prices, however, must be analyzed very carefully to get the true picture. One property may have sold for more than it was really worth because the buyer was in a hurry and would pay any price. Another may have sold for less money than it was actually worth because the owner needed cash right away. The property was sold to the first person who made an offer.
When using the sales comparison approach, the assessor must always consider such overpricing or under pricing and analyze many sales to arrive at a fair valuation of your property. Size, quality, condition, location, and time of sales are also important factors to consider.

COST APPROACH
A second way to value your property is based on how much money it would take, at current material and labor costs, to replace your property with one similar. If your property is not new, the assessor must also determine how much it has depreciated. In addition, the assessor must also determine how much a lot like yours would be worth if vacant.

INCOME APPROACH
The third way is to evaluate how much income your property would produce if it were rented as an apartment house, a store, or a factory. The assessor must consider operating expenses, taxes, insurance, maintenance costs, and the return most people would expect on your kind of property.

One, two or all three of these methods might be used to help the assessor determine the fair market value of your property. It is also important to note that land and buildings are valued separately. Therefore, a home with water frontage may be assessed at a significantly higher value, because of the land’s value, than an identical home without water frontage.

To implement the constitutional requirement that real estate be assessed at its “just value,” and in recognition of the tremendous difficulty and costs to a municipality to maintain a “just value” assessment, the Maine Legislature enacted assessing standards that municipalities must meet. One standard is that the total local valuation of taxable property not falls below 70% of fair market value. Another standard is that the quality ratings of assessments not exceed 20 (which basically mean that the difference in valuation between similar properties should never be greater than 20%).

Revaluations are commonly used when a community falls below the assessing standards. During a revaluation, all property in the municipality is inspected and assessments are adjusted to their fair market value.

When market value changes, the value of your property is likely to change as well. Other factors include improvements that you may make, like adding a room or garage, which might increase your property’s value, or your property being damaged or in disrepair, which might reduce the value.

For homeowners, buildings and land are taxed. For business owners, there may be tax on what is referred to as ‘personal property’ which can include product inventory, business machines, and vehicles associated with the business.

If something is subject to other forms of taxation such as excise tax for vehicles and boats, it may be exempt from other personal property taxes. By law, April 1st of each year is the date on which taxes for the upcoming year are based; so the condition of the property on April 1st what the assessment is based upon.

Simple put, property taxes cover most of the cost of municipal services and public schools in the city. From the State of Maine, municipal revenue sharing and general purpose aid assist with municipal services and schools respectively, but in most municipalities, more than 50% of the combined municipal and school budget comes from local property tax.

Yes, the City accepts both debit and credit cards.  The City uses Maine PayPort, a credit card / debit card processing service, there is an additional 2.5% charge to use a credit or debit card.  There are no additional fees for paying with cash or checks.

In Ellsworth your property taxes fund

• City Planning
• Code Enforcement
• Community & Economic Development
• Election Administration
• Fire and Police Protection
• Issuance of Licenses
• Public Schools
• Public Works for winter and summer road maintenance
• Recreation
• Social Services
• Tax Assessing and Valuation

To submit an address change or correction, present a signed, written statement of the changes needed to the Assessor’s office or return the tear off portion of your tax bill with the noted changes or submit the change of address form here.

Ellsworth City Hall office hours are Monday through Thursday 7 A.M. to 6 P.M.

Ellsworth City Hall is closed for the following holidays:

• New Year’s Day (January 1)
• Martin Luther King, Jr. Day (third Monday in January)
• Presidents’ Day (third Monday in February)
• Memorial Day (last Monday in May)
• Juneteenth (June 19)
• Independence Day (July 4)
• Labor Day (first Monday in September)
• Indigenous Peoples’ Day (second Monday in October)
• Veterans’ Day (November 11)
• Thanksgiving (fourth Thursday in November)
• Christmas (December 25)

If a recognized holiday falls on a Sunday, the holiday will be observed (City Hall will be closed) on the following Monday.

If a recognized holiday falls on a Friday, the holiday will be observed (City Hall will be closed) on the preceding Thursday.

On the right side of your tax bill look for the “current billing information box”. If you received the Homestead Exemption you will see the amounts of $25,000 in the “Homestead” field.

There are 2 components to calculating the mill rate:

• Total property value in the city: The Assessing Department determines the market-based value of all properties in Ellsworth, which creates the city’s total assessed value.
• Amount needed to fund services: After state funding is finalized, the City Council sets the remaining amount of revenue needed from property taxes to support city services and schools.

That total funding need is then divided by the city’s total assessed value to establish the mill rate.

Finally, the mill rate is applied to each property’s assessed value to determine that property’s share of taxes—helping ensure everyone contributes fairly to the services that support our community.