New York Campaigning for Higher Property Taxes

It’s nice to see the Times come out against high property taxes. Well, up to a point, at least. The Grey Lady is catching on to the fact that “renters and homeowners in lower-income neighborhoods end up carrying a lot of the burden” of New York City’s levies on property. The burden of taxation “frustrates” one 74-year-old homeowner at East New York, Carmen Daniels, the Times says. So is the Times pushing for property tax relief? Well, not quite. It turns out that what’s vexing the Times isn’t high property taxes per se, it’s that the burden is falling too heavily on the aforementioned residents of “lower-income neighborhoods.” Pointing to “people in wealthier parts of Brooklyn, like Park Slope and Prospect Heights,” the Times quotes Ms. Daniels asking, “Why is it our taxes in the lower-income neighborhoods, people of color, why are the taxes more” than those in pricier districts?Leave it to the Times to turn a simple premise — burdensome property taxes — and to twist it into a matter of class warfare and racial grievance. Homeowners of every stripe, including Ms. Daniels, have reason to balk at city property taxes. The levies extract some $32 billion from New Yorkers each year, the Times reports, supporting the city’s $110 billion annual budget. A recent Bloomberg report describes the tax as “crushing homeowners.”While the Times cheerfully points out that city property tax rates “are lower than in much of the suburbs,” where such levies “for less valuable homes routinely top $25,000,” this overlooks the fact that, unlike most suburbs, New York City residents are also subject to a city income tax. Not to mention an extra 4.5 percent sales tax, with a 0.375 percent cherry on top in the form of the Metropolitan Commuter Transportation District surcharge. It all contributes to why New York ranks worst in the nation for its tax burden on residents, according to the Tax Foundation. The Empire State’s local and state tax burden amounts to almost 16 percent of the state’s economic output, according to the most recent report from the foundation. Compare that to 8.6 percent in Texas and 9.1 percent in Florida. Per New Yorker, the city and state extract $6,013 a year, more than double the level in Texas or Florida.It’s easy to see why New Yorkers are fleeing the state, especially in light of how little value its residents get for their tax dollars. Feature the state’s public schools, which, as the Empire Center points out, spend the most per pupil in America — nearly double the national average. The city schools, too, spend more per student than any other burg nationwide. Despite all this spending, though, New York is outperformed in student outcomes, the Empire Center says.So it’s understandable why New Yorkers like Ms. Daniels are unhappy with the high taxes they’re paying. As the Times sees it, though, it’s not that these residents’ taxes are too high. It’s that wealthier residents’ taxes aren’t high enough. The Times reports that a “$5.4 million brownstone in Brooklyn’s Park Slope” has a tax bill of but “around $12,000,” compared to a “$7,500 tax bill for a $780,000 home in the Bronx.”The policy failure, as the Times frames it, lies in failing to raise the Park Slope property tax bill. In that, the Grey Lady is aligned with an activist group called “Tax Equity Now,” which is suing the city and state over what it calls “substantially unequal tax bills on similarly-valued properties.” This leads to “staggering inequities,” the group says, “penalizing” residents in “slower-appreciating neighborhoods” and “minorities,” among others.The suit recently cleared a procedural hurdle in the state courts. Yet if anyone anticipates the outcome of this litigation leading to lower property taxes for any New Yorkers, including the minorities and lower-income residents for whom Tax Equity Now purports to be fighting, they are likely to be disappointed. For real tax relief, the city — and state — will have to get serious about curbing the overspending that is saddling New Yorkers with their tax burden.

New York Campaigning for Higher Property Taxes

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