Is Appealing Like Stealing Or Re-Dealing?

“It doesn’t hurt to try!” Many Big Apple, big-building owners are taking and using that maxim to get huge tax breaks when appealing their city property-tax assessments. In 2010, the city Tax Commission reduced property taxes by hundreds of millions of dollars. As of December 30, 2010, 46,929 property-tax appeals were filed which was the highest total ever. 1,710 homeowners also filed for a review. City officials admit that problems are caused by the year’s lag time in determining a building’s estimated value. David Frankel says that the Finance and the Tax Commission must use different data because of the delay which causes the $$$ discrepancies and the successful number of appeals which lowers the taxes NYC collects. New ideas to correct this problem are being sought… but shouldn’t they already be in place? New Yorkers shouldn’t pay more in taxes than required and should be billed the proper amount without needing to appeal. City officials should act immediately to ensure that residents and real estate giants pay a reasonable amount in a timelier manner.

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Home Values Go Down --- Taxes Go Up

Honestly, I don’t know enough about economics, real estate or taxes to give much weight to my thoughts on this story. I leave it to the viewer and experts to make sense of New York City’s homeowner market. With that said, I read as much of the city’s Finance Department report as I dared for fear of internal bleeding. This report details figures and formulas, assessments and explanations as to why many homeowners will be paying more on less. All may be kosher with everything they stated. I don’t know for sure. But perhaps because of it’s presentation, I was reminded of a quote which reads, “Statistics don’t lie, but people who use them occasionally do.” Take this blog for what it’s worth … or assessed for.