State certifies Dover's tax rate; tax bills to be mailed soon

posted on 12/2/2021

The New Hampshire Department of Revenue Administration (DRA) certified the City of Dover's property tax rate for fiscal year 2022 (tax year 2021) Wednesday, Dec. 1, at $21.70 per $1,000 assessed valuation.

The Finance Department is preparing for tax bills to be mailed out Friday, Dec. 10, with the first half of the tax bill due Monday, Jan. 10, 2022. The second half of the tax bill would be due Wednesday, June 1, 2022.

DRA’s certifying of the city’s tax rate was again significantly delayed this year. Factors for the delay included the need to amend the City of Dover’s budget this fall to account for additional school state aid funding and the delays from other municipalities in addressing how to report the receipt and use of federal and state COVID-19 grant funding. The latter created a backlog of communities ahead of Dover in the tax-rate setting queue.

The tax rate set by the DRA represents a decrease of $3.15 or a 12.7 percent decrease over the prior year. Based on the average single-family residential property assessment of $413,518 for fiscal year 2022 (tax year 2021), the total tax levy would be $8,973.34, a $245.90 or 2.8 percent increase over last year. To calculate property tax for a specific parcel, multiply the tax rate by the assessed value and divide by 1,000.

In an email to the City Council notifying them of the certified tax rate, City Manager J. Michael Joyal, Jr., said the “overall tax rate would have increased by $0.59 or 2.4% but was instead significantly reduced due to the overall increase in assessed value of 17.6% or nearly $200 million realized from the combination of increased market value and the new construction value added within the community this past year.”

There are four components of the tax rate: the city portion, local education portion, state education, and Strafford County. The tax rate of $21.70 is broken down as follows:

• City: $8.02, a decrease of $1.17 over the previous year;
• Local education: $9.93, a decrease of $1.29 over the previous year;
• State education: $1.62, a decrease of 31 cents
• County: $2.13, a decrease of 38 cents over the previous year.

For more information, contact the City of Dover Finance Department at 603-516-6030.