This Massachusetts farmer won an 8-year battle to not pay $300K in back taxes — it turns out he was owed $31K

Maurie Backman

Tue, May 13, 2025, 6:00 AM 7 min read

In 2022, Bill Griggs — the owner of Griggs Farm in Billerica, MA — was told that his farm owed the town $300,000 in back taxes. At the time, the farm had been in business for roughly 80 years.

But Griggs fought back, demanding a breakdown of the specific taxes that the town was charging on his farmland.

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"What they want is just unsustainable," Griggs told WBZ-TV at the time. "I do not have a breakdown. I just have a grand total. I'd like to see the breakdown of what they are actually charging on the business land."

Now, CBS News Boston reports that Griggs has won his fight — and not only does he not have to pay $300,000 in back taxes, he actually gets to walk away with a $31,000 check.

In 2017, Griggs stopped paying taxes on his land, claiming that the town of Billerica had been taxing his land improperly since 1997.

Griggs' farm was assessed at a value of $1.2 million, which he claimed was way too high. Part of Griggs’ argument was that his farm is covered under Massachusetts’ Agricultural Preservation Restriction (APR) program.

Under this program, which is voluntary, owners of farmland are paid the difference between their land's fair market value and agricultural value. In exchange, farm owners must agree to a permanent deed restriction that preserves the land for farming only. The purpose of the program is to prevent farmland from being developed, thereby making the state's agricultural industry more sustainable.

It's that very program, Griggs said, that made his farm eligible for a lower tax rate. "It is preserved open land," Griggs told CBS News Boston. "It became just unsustainable when you tax so heavy. You run out of money."

Part of the confusion stemmed from the fact that Billerica thought Griggs' farm was running more like a retail space. The town claimed that Griggs was selling flowers and imported vegetables to supplement his income and compensate for crops lost during summertime droughts. But Griggs insisted he was doing no such thing.

Dina Favreau, a member of Billerica's Select Board, started looking into Griggs' situation prior to joining. And as she explained to CBS News Boston, parts of Griggs' land were being taxed erroneously, leading to a higher bill.