Will Long Islanders face huge increases in annual property tax bills as government looks to offset dips in sales tax receipts?
The foundation is already being laid to dramatically increase property taxes across Suffolk and Nassau County. All in the name of making up for softer receipts from sales taxes over the past year.
So, how bad could it get? Why make the shift? How might your taxes go up anyway?
Replacing Sales Taxes With Higher Property Taxes
According to the NY State Comptroller and coverage by the Long Island Press, sales tax revenues declined by over 30% in Suffolk and Nassau in mid 2020.
Despite having enough funds for government workers and politicians to get pay raises this year, the argument is being made that those lower numbers will have to be made up from somewhere else, under the threat of cutting services.
It doesn’t seem to matter that the declines in these tax revenues stem directly from the same government that caused the temporary decline due to closing businesses and issuing stay at home orders.
In fact, the NY State Comptroller’s Office has been slowly feeding out this idea of using sales taxes as an excuse to raise property taxes further since 2015. Even then their reports proclaimed that property tax was a much more consistent form of taxation and income than sales taxes.
More & Higher Taxes Are Coming
While there seems to be little common sense in this, besides the fact that they just want to hike taxes. After all, if there is such strong belief in the new administration building back the economy better, it should mean all types of tax revenues will bounce back shortly.
With schools closed, eliminating the school district taxes alone could slash homeowners annual property tax bills by as much as 40% to 70%.
Unfortunately, it seems this carefully created blip or excuse will be used to raise property taxes substantially. Though don’t expect any reduction in sales taxes.
Property taxes are also likely to go up in the next few years due to rising property prices, dealing with the new foreclosure crisis and zombie homes, and expenses associated with COVID and civil unrest.
With new policies and ads being run by those connected to the World Economic Forum calling for a great reset stating they no longer want you to own anything (unless of course you are a big tech CEO or politician), any excuse may be used to try and squeeze and price average property owners out.
What To Do
In spite of the fact that many of the world’s wealthiest and most prosperous places don’t have annual property taxes at all, or corporate taxes, and some have only now begun to use sales taxes, Long Islander’s can expect to continue to be hounded by rising bills and tax rates.
Now is the time to drive down your baseline for taxes by challenging your property tax assessment with the help of Property Tax Adjusters, Ltd. and resetting your bill. The thousands this can save you can at least be used as a cushion for rising taxes. Or to offset other financial issues that may arise ahead.