Press release:
Assemblyman Steve Hawley (R,I,C-Batavia) expressed pleasure today at the news that Gov. Andrew Cuomo has signed legislation creating a 2-percent agricultural assessment cap into law. Hawley, a cosponsor of this cap, sees this as crucial to ensuring our farming families can afford to maintain their operations for generations to come.
“Our local farms have felt the squeeze from constantly escalating taxes in recent years,” Hawley said. “The agricultural assessment will be crucial in giving our farming families some financial breathing room, allowing them to stay on their land for generations to come and continue doing what they do best: producing the locally grown, healthy products our state relies on.”
These caps do nothing to
These caps do nothing to address government spending in New York state..Drop all the mandates they put on all county and city governments..Why aren't they looking for ways to lower the property tax burden in New York State not increase it by 2 % every year...Thats a false number also...If the school ,city and county can all raise your property tax by 2% doesn't that really equal 6%....Why would Hawley be praising Coumo for allowing property taxes to increase year after year by 6%...He should be admonishing Coumo not praising........Property taxes are a major problem to growth in this state..Why do we have GCEDC ..To give out property tax breaks..Tax caps are not the answer..How about making them all lower the tax rate by 2% every year,,Now your on to something..
To allow a piece of property's assess value to only increase by 2% does not address anything to stop spending...property values don't increase that much year from year.These programs ,.Capping the tax rate and property assessment only sends the message that you will always be paying more year over year for your property tax..
Why all these gimmicks in how we tax property........
Mark, your comment reads like
Mark, your comment reads like you're mixing a property tax cap with an assessment cap.
An assessment cap will effect all jurisdictions that impose taxes.
From what I've been reading over the past year, assessments on farm land have been going up at a significantly higher rate than other types of property in the state, making it harder and harder for farmers to remain profitable.
Howard..I know these are two
Howard..I know these are two different issues..2% cap or a 2% property assessment in crease...My point is more about why do we need these gimmicks on taxation in this state...These things do nothing to solve the problem of high property taxes in New York State...All they do is control the increases..Why must we give out tax abatement's ...Property taxes are two high and the above measures aren't solving the problem...
The issue for me is whether
The issue for me is whether this 2% cap is on the assessed value before or after the agriculture exclusion. Looking through my records, my tax rate (property + school taxes) ranges from 1.2% to 2.6% of the assessed value of the land, but if one calculates the tax rate based on the value after the 50% agricultural exemption, my tax rate would be 2.4% to 5.2%. In 2012, I paid between $19 to $29 per acre in taxes, up from $10 to $20 per acre in 2007. With farm land now going for about $3,000 per acre, a 2% cap would be $60 per acre in taxes, which is more than I can rent out the land for.
I'm not sure I follow,
I'm not sure I follow, Robert.
A two percent cap on raising the assessment would mean, that $3,000 acre this year couldn't be more than $3,060 next year, so if your tax rate stayed the same, it wouldn't go up more than $3.12 (using your 5.2 percent figure).
vs. going up God knows how much if the assessor isn't inhibited from turning the acre at $3,000 this year to $3,500 or $4,000 next year (thought I doubt it ever goes up that much in a single year -- just saying, it does seem logical that ag land taxes would rise a lot less faster than without a cap on assessed value).
I'm more curious about what loopholes their might be for the government. Remember how everybody thought local government was getting a 2 percent property tax cap? It turned out to be a 2 percent levy cap with all kinds of arcane formulas allowing the levy to go up as much as an actual 4 percent or more in some cases, and it can still be overridden.