Quoted from 615
Can you blame him for grieving his taxes? What a ripoff!
He is not grieving his "taxes." He is grieving the "assessed value" of his property.
So many people have no clue. So many people think that when a municipality does a reassessment, and if assessments go up, that the tax BILL will go up. It is the tax LEVY that has to do with the impact on the tax BILL.
In the town, we used to have a tax RATE of something like $300 "per thousand of ASSESSEMENT value." Well, come on people, use your brain. If the tax RATE is $300 per thousand and your assessment is $4,000, then the town reassesses to make houses be assessed at the state mandated full value, well, tell me, is YOUR tax RATE still $300 per thousand? Mine is not.
Your taxes are determined by the town, county, and school district budget. Those budgets determine the tax LEVY (which is the amount of money the taxing entity needs to raise to complete it's budget, typically after revenue from all other sources has been determined and set). The tax LEVY is then divided by the total asssessed value of all properties in the town (or school district, or other taxing entity).
Before reassessment, there might have been one house assessed at $3,000 and the one next door at $4,000......amounts determined 50 years ago. So fast forward 50 years and say the two houses are now IDENTICAL, then isn't it only fair that they both be assessed IDENTICAL????? The person with the house assessed at $3,000 will whine about reassessment saying "it's just a way to increase our taxes." But really it will make the tax BILL for two IDENTICAL houses to be IDENTICAL, because the one house is paying less than their fair share of taxes. Reassessment is supposed to be done without regard to what the tax BILL might or might not be. Reassessment is supposed to be done, i.e., determining the value of a property and it's improvements based on it's worth, it's value on the open market. The impact on "the taxes" (the tax BILL) is determined in the budget process, and of course, you know, when a government cuts services, you all whine and moan and groan saying "DON'T CUT!"
Everyone has the opportunity, the right, and the priviledge to grieve their assessment whether at only the BAR level or to the other end as in what Mr DelGallo is doing. Homeowners can do it themselves or hire an attorney or those tax adjusters.
I went to the town's assessment website and looked up FDG property and personally, if his house is worth as little as he is claiming it is, well, then, ours and that of our neighbors would have to be only about $50,000. Houses around the town that have sold for $300,000 are not as fancy as his and much smaller.
(by the way, if the whole town was reassessed to 50% less than our houses are now, our tax RATE would double but our tax BILL would stay EXACTLY THE SAME.....
IF, IF....the tax LEVY stayed the same in the next budget.)
For those who believe the reassessment resulted in assessed values that are too high, well, did you grieve? What are comparable houses around you selling for? Much less than your house is assessed for? Roughly the same as your assessment? I'm fine with our assessment, pretty much in line with what houses are selling for. Now, I know one thing in Schenectady city that is bad, is that people grieved and they were merely told "denied," with no reason given, people don't know why they were denied even though they may have proved that every house on their street either sold for less or is assessed for less than a grievant might have presented. Not having grieved my asssessment in the town, I don't know. If you grieve, and are denied, are you told why?
Also, looking at FDG property, that one is really difficult because I'd love to know what the comarables are that he might be using. Again, I'm not saying at all that I am supporting the assessment he claims, but then again, maybe the value of his house is not as high as the assessor or board has claimed. The difficulty with his claim, is, like I said, the lack of comparables. It's kind of like Wade Lupe's mansion (on Balltown Rd) in a development full of Cape Cods on slabs (similar to what is in Coldbrook)---what would be a comp to Lupe's mansion in a case like that. I'm only glad I'm not one who has to consider issues in this.
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