Posted on 05/13/2024 2:38:28 PM PDT by texas booster
This article is posted in its entirety after a podcast from Bloomburg discussed the unfair NYC property tax system.
New York City’s notorious property tax system — which places a higher burden on rental properties and advantages affluent white areas at the expense of lower-income neighborhoods of color — appears headed for a major overhaul.
The state’s highest court voted 4-3 on Tuesday to reinstate a lawsuit by a coalition called Tax Equity Now New York that sought to have the convoluted system declared illegal.
The Court of Appeals revived two claims from the suit, which had previously been dismissed by lower courts. The first is that taxing homeowners less than rental buildings violates the state’s real property tax law. The second is that by capping assessments in neighborhoods with rising property values, the city over-taxes minority communities in violation of the federal fair housing law.
“This gives the city and every property owner the opportunity to have a property tax system that is fair, equitable and even transparent and easier to understand,” said Martha Stark, the former city finance commissioner who has been the public spokesperson for Tax Equity. “It has been decades with a property tax system that nobody believes is fair.”
The appeals court did not decide the issue in its ruling this week. Instead it returned the case to the state’s lowest court, the Supreme Court.
However, the court’s 60-page decision gives instructions to the lower court to rule in such a way it is likely to uphold the Tax Equity complaints, said Benjamin Williams, who leads the property tax department of the real estate law firm Rosenberg & Estis.
The inequities in the city’s property taxes have been a subject of debate for years.
To tackle the problem, former Mayor Bill de Blasio established a commission to study the issue, which reported its recommendations for changes amid his last days in office. If adopted, the commission’s policies would have created a new class of small residential properties and abolished the phase-in rules that shield homes in areas of fast-rising values from higher assessments — which keeps the increases in property taxes on such homes lower than they would have been.
As a candidate, Mayor Eric Adams has endorsed property tax reform but has said he wants it to happen through action by the state legislature.
However, political leaders have been unwilling to take the heat any reform is likely to generate.
“Some property owners will see their property taxes go up, especially homeowners in more white areas,” said attorney Williams. “Others will see them go down, especially homeowners in more non-white areas.”
What Stark wants done is to create a system that assigns the same value assessment to similar properties, making their property taxes equal. Especially important, she says, is to end the lower assessments for the city’s expensive coops and provide relief to the over-taxed rental apartment buildings.
By doing so, her group hopes, the city could reap taxes in a more equitable way, and spur the type of housing development the city needs to avoid an even worse affordability crisis. Nothing in the decision would necessarily change the total amount of property taxes collected.
The Supreme Court could eventually order specific changes. At Tuesday’s weekly media briefing, Adams administration officials said they wanted to wait to see what the lower court decides before weighing in.
The state legislature, which controls the city’s tax system, could do so through legislation and make the lawsuit moot.
State Sen. Liz Kreuger, who chairs the finance committee, said she is open to making changes but only in concert with the mayor and City Council.
Williams says that the city’s Department of Finance on its own could simply change the assessment ratios that lead to the unfairness. But that would make the mayor the focus of the anger from those who would face higher taxes.
Please keep in mind that the former head of the city commission that headed this tax collection is one of the plaintiffs in this lawsuit - on the side of citizens.
I did not realize how corrupt NYC property taxes had become until reading this.
It is not like property taxes in other parts of the country.
It's all in the interest of equality.
Nothing to see here, move along.
Property tax needs to be outlawed. It is an affront to the right to own property.
You cannot ever own property if you are eternally paying rent to the government. And that’s what property tax truly is; RENT.
“It is not like property taxes in other parts of the country.”
Its not like proprty taxes in other parts of the State.
The “property tax” in NYC is so bizarre that even Trump could fall afoul of it.
Except that everyone in NYC is guilty of cheating on their property taxes.
From developers to owners of a rent controlled property, nobody can understand what NYC wants from their tax bill.
Except more money.
Stated as if that's fact. See Tagline.
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