Coming down from Hartford

Statewide 1% tax on residences and commercial properties, surcharge tax on capital gains earned by those with income of $500,000.

Yankee Institute
Senate President Pro-Tem Martin Looney, D-New Haven, filed two bills to implement a statewide property tax on residential and commercial property and to implement a surcharge on capital gains.

Although the bills are only concept bills at this point and therefore lack detail, the statewide property tax “would establish a one mill state-wide tax on commercial residential and commercial property, provided the first three hundred thousand dollars of the assessed value of a residential property shall be exempt from such tax.”

The exemption would not appear to apply to commercial properties and would largely target wealthy towns with high residential property values.

The capital gains bill would apply “a surcharge of one percent of the net gain from the sale or exchange of capital assets” on taxpayers who earn $500,000 or more as an individual, $800,000 or more as the head of a household and $1 million or more if married and filing jointly.