Mass. Gen. Laws ch. 59 § 29
Assessors before making an assessment shall give seasonable notice thereof to all persons subject to taxation in their respective towns. Such notice shall be posted in one or more public places in each town, or shall be given in some other sufficient manner, and shall require the said persons to bring into the assessors, before a date therein specified, in case of residents a true list, containing the items required by the commissioner in the form prescribed by him under section five of chapter fifty-eight of all their personal estate not exempt from taxation, except intangible property the income of which is included in a return filed the same year in accordance with sections twenty-two to twenty-five, inclusive, of chapter sixty-two, and in case of non-residents and foreign corporations such a true list of all their personal estate in that town not exempt from taxation, and may or may not require such list to include their real estate subject to taxation in that town. It shall also require all persons, except corporations making returns to the commissioner of insurance as required by section thirty-eight of chapter one hundred and seventy-six, to bring in to the assessors before a date therein specified, which shall not be later than March first following, unless the assessors for cause shown extend the time to a reasonable later time but in no event later than the last day for filing an application for abatement of the tax for the fiscal year to which the filing relates, true lists, similarly itemized, of all real and personal estate held by them respectively for literary, educational, temperance, benevolent, charitable or scientific purposes on January first preceding, or at the election of any such corporation on the last day of its fiscal year preceding said January first, together with such information as may be required to comply with regulations promulgated by the commission pursuant to section three of chapter fifty-eight and the amount of receipts and expenditures for said purposes during the year together with copies of federal tax returns containing unrelated business income taxable under section five hundred and eleven of the Internal Revenue Code. The assessors may require from any person claiming under the Seventeenth, Eighteenth or Twenty-second clause of section five an exemption from taxation, a full list of all such person's taxable property, both real and personal.
Mass. Gen. Laws ch. 59, § 29