Tax department warns adding nine property classifications would complicate administration

The Vermont Tax Department told the House Ways & Means committee on Thursday that a proposal to create multiple new property tax classifications — including a separate category for second homes — raises major administrative, mixed‑use and compliance questions that the department believes could undermine equitable administration across the state.

The department’s deputy tax commissioner, Rebecca Sam Roth, told the committee, “we absolutely understand the the committee's interest in having these property classifications,” and said the department was “not being supportive of adding 9 property classifications.”

The department framed its concerns around three core implementation components: clear definitions, a reliable identification mechanism (owner attestation versus taxing‑jurisdiction determination), and rules for handling mixed use. The witnesses repeatedly flagged that a property’s use can change over time and that existing municipal valuation categories are different from classifications that…