The Davis Square Community

As home owner who lives in the home I own, I get an exemption saving me about 20% on my property tax. I just got a letter from the Board of Assessors saying that "the Board is requiring those taxpayers who have been receiving the exemption for the longest peiord of time to refile an application for fiscal year 2014.

I started filling out the form, and then my spidey sense started tingling. Although there are no obvious errors or misstatements, there's a level of enthusiasm that I associate more with scams than the city of Somerville. There's an exclamation point at the end of the sentence that says how much I saved in property tax in 2013, and there's a bolded, underlined DO NOT IGNORE!! at the top of the page. There's also a vague sense of threat, in sentences like "Failure to return you application and documention wihtin 30 days of the date of this letter will require the board to remove the exemption for FY2014. You are strongly advised to file now and not delay, (we will send no additional letter)." Most worryingly, they ask for a copy of my 2013 MA tax return.

Has anyone else received something like this? I plan to call 311 on Monday for more information, but figured it might be worthwhile to post here, as it's likely other community members will be receiving similar letters.

EDIT: Thanks to everyone who chimed in. It sounds like it's legit. I'm still planning to call Tuesday (thanks Ron for the reminder that Monday is a holiday), both to confirm and also to suggest to them that they may want to tone down the urgency to avoid sounding like a phishing expedition.