I read with interest Anne Dodd’s Jan. 19 op-ed about her trepidation over Brunswick’s reassessment of a cottage she and her late spouse owned for decades when newcomers all around her are paying over $1 million in purchase prices (“No Mainer should have to sell their home because of rising property taxes”).

We’re doing property tax assessment all wrong. Maine law requiring properties to be assessed at a “just value” is interpreted as market value. A fairer — and perhaps more “just value” — would be to tax the property on the purchase price times the U.S. dollar’s inflation each year. So, a house purchased 50 years ago, in 1975, for $50,000 would be assessed at $291,533 today.

The beauty of this system is manifold. It reduces costly and time-consuming reassessments for towns; it reduces the anxiety and shock of reassessments on residents; it takes the guesswork out of estimating fair-market value when assessing; it’s tax fairness without any tax credits, rebates, discounts, or other programs; and, it’s a more accurate measure of what the property owners can afford.

Sure, some protocols will need to be adopted for assessing inherited homes, self-built homes, derelict homes that are subsequently renovated and additions. But those are all instances we can account for. The vast majority of properties will be assessed annually on auto-pilot. And here’s another perk: it would reduce pressure on tax rates. Because values are adjusted by inflation every year, there would be less need for town councils to raise tax rates to keep up with inflationary costs.

Robert O’Brien
Portland