A wave of property tax challenges across Long Island, especially in Suffolk County, is flooding town governments and prompting warnings that many homeowners could wind up paying higher rates than they expect.
The reason, taxpayer advocates say, is that a lowering of tax assessments for some property owners typically means that other owners pay larger shares. And those facing higher-than-average tax hikes often receive little or no advance warning, due to complexities of the taxation system.
The issue is taking on increased urgency with the approach of Tuesday's Tax Grievance Day - the annual deadline for challenging assessments throughout most of the state. That same day, Island residents will vote on $10.4 billion in proposed school spending, which accounts for two-thirds of the region's property taxes.
Often, voters don't know the exact impact those budgets will have on their taxes until after assessments are finalized late in the summer.
"Tax avoidance is an American art form, and everyone should have a right to do that," said Fred Gorman, a Nesconset civic leader and taxpayer organizer. "I just don't want anyone to get the short end of the stick."
Gorman, whose Nesconset-Sachem Civic Association represents 1,100 homeowners, favors a communitywide approach to assessment challenges to keep the system as evenhanded as possible. In January, he submitted to Smithtown officials a list of 214 properties in his own community that he felt might qualify for lower assessments.
After reviewing the list, Smithtown Assessor Greg Hild concluded last month that 48 homeowners did indeed qualify for assessment reductions, worth an average of about $770 apiece in annual tax savings.
Hild says his office expects by Tuesday to receive substantially more than the 3,000 tax challenges it got last year, and that it is struggling to keep up with the volume. Nonetheless, he voiced admiration for Gorman's civic activism.
Resistance to higher taxes runs especially high in Suffolk County, where court-ordered reductions in property taxes due to over-assessments hit an all-time high of $84.9 million this year. That's more than double the $37.4 million in reductions recorded just three years ago by the county treasurer's office.
Nassau and Suffolk, with 15 percent of the state's population, accounted last year for 85 percent of all tax-assessment challenges filed in courts statewide. Nassau had 42,508 challenges; Suffolk, 35,573. Such cases can be brought to court, if agreements aren't reached in assessors' offices.
Many such offices are swamped. Town assessors in Babylon, Brookhaven, Huntington and Smithtown all say they expect to finalize this year's tax-assessment rolls well after the state's July 1 deadline - a delay that is becoming chronic in some cases.
In December, a state commission on property-tax relief headed by Nassau County Executive Thomas Suozzi recommended that assessments be consolidated at the county level, as is already done in Nassau. Neither Gov. David A. Paterson nor legislative leaders have acted on that proposal, or on most of the commission's other recommendations for capping school taxes and cutting costs.
"This is the most complex tax system in the nation, and it's not easy for taxpayers to understand," said Geoffrey Gloak, a spokesman for the state Office of Real Property Services, who served on the tax-commission staff.
Taxpayers' confusion often stems from a lack of information. Eighteen school districts, mostly in Nassau, have told Newsday in recent weeks that they can't calculate the impact of their proposed budgets on home tax rates. The usual reasons offered are that districts didn't have assessment figures on which tax rates are based, or that they received figures too late to include rates in budget brochures.
Most districts do provide such information, however. The usual reasons offered were the districts didn't have adequate information from county or town assessors in time to calculate tax rates for their budget brochures.
"We don't want to have an October surprise for the taxpayer," said Richard McGrath, a Huntington school board member.
