The Business Council in March will reprise seminars designed to help businesses understand property-tax assessments and how they can be challenged to reduce property taxes.
The one-day seminars will take place March 5, 6, and 7 in Buffalo, Waterloo & Saratoga Springs, respectively. Council seminars are open to the public but are discounted for Council members.
The Council introduced this new seminar series last spring, and the seminars were well-received, said Ellen Muir, The Council's director of conference development.
The seminar includes case studies designed to help managers carefully plan and execute their attempts to reduce property-tax assessments and property taxes.
Specific topics to be discussed during the seminar include:
- The assessment process and the definition of "fair market value."
- Annual events that affect a taxpayer's assessment.
- How to read a tax bill.
- The costs and benefits of "special districts." How to calculate county, town, and school tax rates.
- Information a tax assessor needs and expects to have, and how a taxpayer can ensure that it is updated.
- How equalization rates affect tax rates and assessments, and how to learn your local equalization rate.
- How environmental issues affect property values.
- Understanding exemption under section 485-b of the state's Real Property Tax Law.
- Case studies of efforts to challenge property-tax assessments.
- Using all available information to decide whether to challenge an assessment, to plan a challenge, and to increase its likelihood of success.
New York's property taxes are widely regarded as one of New York's most important competitive disadvantages.
Even as state lawmakers have cut taxes by more than $8 billion since the mid-1990s, property taxes have continued to climb. As a result, New York's per-capita combined state and local tax burden remains the nation's highest, according to Just the Facts 2001, an compendium of key economic indicators published annually by The Council's research affiliate, The Public Policy Institute.