Below some details concerning the property tax cap credit rebate plan that has been tentatively agreed to in Albany as per Gov. Cuomo’s press release published yesterday:
- $1.5 Billion in Property Tax Relief: The Budget includes a new Property Tax Credit to provide relief to New York homeowners and address one of the primary drivers of the State's high property taxes – the outsized number of local governments. The property tax relief package is designed to incentivize local governments to share services and reduce their financial burden on the taxpayer. In the first year under the reform plan, New Yorkers will receive property tax relief if their local governments stay within the property tax cap. The property tax cuts will be extended for a second year in jurisdictions which comply with the tax cap and have put forward a plan to save 1 percent of their tax levy per year, over three years. While localities may offer a variety of approaches, the plan is designed to incentivize county governments to convene and facilitate a process and submit a county-wide plan for approval. Over three years, the program will result in over $1.5 billion in direct property tax relief for as many as 2.8 million taxpayers.
To those who have been following this tax blog this is good news. More details are certainly needed and to come. But if Patchogue Village does comply with this option it will essentially mean that village taxes will be frozen. The law will allow a small two percent increase annually with a two percent rebate annually end result: no effective increase in the net taxes paid by village tax payers. However as usual the devil is in the details and whether in fact local village officials have the political will to comply once the law has actually been passed by the Legislature remains to be seen. First sign of whether that will be happen will be seen shortly when the tax rate for the 2014-15 village budget is set sometime later this week (a provisional first draft amount does appear to have been set but has been qualified by the Mayor as subject to revision leaving the published amount a question mark).
