hartford

A number of Connecticut municipalities use tax breaks or incentives to stimulate growth. But for some, particularly cities like Hartford and New Haven with high tax rates, they can be the literal lifeblood of much of the economic development that occurs within their borders. Even towns with lower property-tax rates like Windsor resort to tax-fixing…

A recent and notable tax-break deal the city of Hartford hatched in recent years was with one of its most prominent downtown landlords: Shelbourne Global. Shelbourne is a New York realty investor/developer/landlord that has purchased more than $200 million in Hartford real estate over the last few years, including some of downtown’s most prized Class…

Municipal leaders in Connecticut are intimately familiar with the state’s own PILOT program, which reimburses cities and towns, at least partially, for state-owned and other tax-exempt properties. The program, which is part of the overall state aid cities and towns receive, has become the subject of much griping over the years as state lawmakers have…

Hartford Hospital, whose various exempt parcels in the city are assessed at approximately $481 million. There are fewer than a dozen U.S. cities that receive more than $1 million a year in voluntary payments from not-for-profit organizations — like hospitals and colleges — that are exempt from paying property taxes, according to the Lincoln Institute…

In the midst of the last recession, Massachusetts lawmakers — a place where, like Connecticut, municipalities rely heavily on property taxes — gave their cities and towns a powerful new revenue-raising tool. Since 2009, by vote of a local selectboard or city council, municipalities have been able to tack on 0.75 percentage points to the…