Co-founder of Tax Fairness Now New York (TENNY) Martha Stark. Credit score: NYU Wagner
Because the Metropolis’s Finance Commissioner in the course of the Bloomberg Administration, Martha Stark helped convey a brand new degree of transparency to the property tax system. For the primary time, homeowners had been notified of the method and knowledge that was used to evaluate their property taxes.
Now, because the co-founder of Tax Fairness Now New York (TENNY), she’s main the cost to alter the system itself. A coalition of renters, homeowners, public coverage and social justice organizations, TENNY is in search of a court docket order to declare the present system unconstitutional.
“The transparency that we engaged in in the course of the Bloomberg Administration began to focus on to constructing homeowners the parts of the system,” she stated. “They realized how the division valued property, and the way the construction of the property tax made it extra difficult — and made it unfair to many house owners.”
For instance, why does a house in Park Slope pay much less taxes, factored as a proportion worth of the house, than one in The Bronx?
“It’s as a result of their assessments aren’t equal,” she stated.
Right here’s why: When a 1981 legislation modified the property tax construction, it capped will increase in property assessments at 6% a 12 months. As a part of the re-set, all properties within the Metropolis ought to have been reassessed to create a clear slate.
However the reassessment didn’t occur. The State legislature didn’t demand it, and because of this, properties all through the boroughs started this new program with pre-existing inequities.
The evaluation caps exacerbated the inequities. “In case you’re in a neighborhood the place property values are rising quicker than the 6% evaluation cap, like Park Slope, then the legislation advantages you,” stated Stark.
Certainly, if the Metropolis is barely in a position to seize a 6% evaluation improve yearly, and the worth of a Park Slope house will increase 10% in a 12 months, the Metropolis will solely seize 6% of that. “Whereas in The Bronx, if the property worth will increase 5% in a 12 months, the Metropolis can seize all of that improve,” stated Stark. “Householders within the Metropolis’s neighborhoods with decrease values wind up paying a better share of their worth in taxes.”
There are different elements within the lawsuit — one in all them being inequity in evaluation between rental buildings and co-ops and condos. Stark pointed to a latest buy of a rental for $200+ million, whereas the Metropolis’s worth for that rental — and the premise for its tax invoice — is about $12 million.
“We felt that the State courts wanted to be concerned and to declare the property tax system unconstitutional, unlawful, and a violation of the federal honest housing act,” stated Stark.
In January, TENNY hopes to get its want. That’s when the case will likely be argued on the New York State Courtroom of Appeals (the state’s highest court docket). “Maybe we are able to begin contemporary,” stated Stark, “and provides some clearer steerage to the legislature about what they should do, and drive them to truly take motion.”
Tax Fairness Now New York (TENNY) sued New York State and Metropolis claiming that the property tax construction violates the Structure and numerous tax legal guidelines. For extra data test their website.
