The ultimate mission of the Tax Assessment Office is to assign accurate values to all Jamestown property and to treat all property owners in a fair and equitable manner.  The Tax Assessor must inspect real estate and analyze real estate sales in order to determine Fair Market Value assessments.

The Tax Assessor’s Office is also responsible for the preparation of regular and supplemental tax rolls for real estate, motor vehicles, and business personal property. The Assessor's Office works with the Finance Department and the Tax Collector to insure that property information is up-to-date, so that taxes can be billed in an accurate and timely fashion. The office is responsible for reading and analyzing deeds, updating the town’s tax maps, maintaining ownership records and mailing addresses, processing tax appeals, business personal property returns, open space and exemption applications, as well as providing taxpayers with a variety of information and services.

Rhode Island State Law mandates that cities and towns perform full revaluations of all classes of property every nine (9) years, with statistical updates of all property assessments during the intervening third and sixth years.  Full revaluations involve the interior and exterior inspection, re-measurement, and photographs of all properties.  Statistical revaluations involve only the inspection of properties that have sold within the previous twelve months.  Sales are analyzed to determine new town-wide values.