Weekly Newsletter of the
Office of Real Property Tax Services

Happy Halloween!

Here’s some holiday fun for you! (Answers at bottom of today’s edition.)

1. What type of property is a haunted house?
2. How do you accurately assess a cemetery?
3. Zombie humans eat brains. What do zombie houses eat?
4. When are humans real property?
5. How do zombies assess property?
6. What street do zombies live on?
7. Do witches’ houses have garages?
8. When are the applications for the haunted house exemption due?
9. Last (and least): What do you a call a new assessor?
   
   

2022 STAR credits vs STAR exemption savings

Earlier this year, we began publishing STAR credit amounts and STAR exemption savings amounts for every one of the 3,000-plus school district segment in our state. This enabled interested homeowners and local officials to compare the difference in their school district segments.

As you’ll recall, due to a law change in 2019, the STAR exemption savings can no longer increase, but the STAR credit can increase by as much as 2% annually. As a result, the STAR credit is more than the STAR exemption savings in many cases.

This is especially true for the Enhanced STAR credit vs the Enhanced STAR exemption savings because Enhanced STAR is increased statutorily in most years. In 90% of school district segments, seniors receiving the Enhanced STAR credit save at least $10 more than those receiving the Enhanced STAR exemption. In nearly 20% of the cases, the difference is $100 or more.

Of course, we’d all like to have these figures prospectively, so we could make the change before school tax bills are issued. But ORPTS relies on school tax rates to calculate STAR credits, and the final rates are not available until just before we issue the credits.

Now that most schools have mailed their tax bills and we’ve issued their credits, the 2022 STAR credit and STAR exemption savings amounts are now updated for all but Nassau and Suffolk Counties, whose school tax bills are issued later than the rest of the state. (Their data will be posted in November and December, respectively.)

And from last week: Which counties don’t share their names with a city, town or village?

• Dutchess
• Erie
• St. Lawrence
• Suffolk
• Westchester

As for John Venditti, who provided this trivia question, he’s worked with us for 54 years!

• First with Equalization and Assessment,
• then with the New York State Office of Real Property Services, and
• finally with New York State Department of Taxation and Finance, Office of Real Property Tax Services.
  
  

Halloween Riddle Answers

1. "Unreal" property
2. From six feet under
3. Compounding property tax bills and curb appeal
4. When they have bats in the belfry
5. They “eye” them.
6. Dead end street
7. No, they park in the broom closet
8. Friday the 13th
9. Fresh meat (Sorry newbies!)

Judicial cases

New Judicial cases:

• Matter of Empire Realty Invs. I LLC v Board of Assessment Review of the Town of E. Greenbush
• Matter of Colonie Ctr. v Town of Colonie

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• Key telephone lines:
  • Assessor/Director Hotline: 518-457-9053 (reminder, this is for your use only)
  • STAR credit telephone number for homeowners: 518-457-2036
  • Homeowner tax rebate credit telephone number: 518-453-8146
• Archive of past Assessment Community Weekly posts
  
  

Send comments and suggestions to real.property@tax.ny.gov. Thank you!