Quoted from Libertarian4life

Total Assessed Value     $531,000.00

Full Market Value        $531,000.00

Exemptions             $774,500.00

How does someone get exempted 50% higher than the assessed value?

Quoted from mikechristine1

..., he says that taxes in the city are lower than 10 years ago ...

Quoted from Libertarian4life

They "are" way lower for downtown.

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Payment in lieu of taxes (often abbreviated as PILOT or PILT) is a program where a municipality receives a payment in lieu of property or sales tax revenue, either from a nonprofit organization or from another government entity that owns a real asset, such as land, or a valuable right-of-way

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United States[edit]
In the United States, the occasion for such a payment can arise in several different ways:

Land owned by the federal government is generally not subject to taxation by state or local governments. Under Public Law 94-565, enacted in 1976, the federal government began a program of making payments in lieu of taxation to local governments affected by this reduction in their tax bases.
In some states where land owned by colleges and universities is not subject to local property taxes, the state government reimburses the local governments for part of the tax revenue that the local government would otherwise have collected. In other cases, the institution makes a direct payment to the local government (which would not otherwise be reimbursed) simply to maintain good relations.[1]
PILOTs may be negotiated in specific circumstances, as when an arrangement is made for a corporation or institution to build a facility on public land without assuming ownership of the land. For example, there is such a program in New York state. In conjunction with the proposal to build a West Side Stadium in New York City for use by the New York Jets, there was controversy over the proposal by the Mayor, Michael Bloomberg, to use PILOT money from the Jets to help finance the project rather than applying it to other municipal expenses.[2] The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, a bi-state public authority, makes payments in lieu of taxes to New York City under an agreement relating to its ownership of the World Trade Center site.[3]
Similarly, where a non-profit organization may be exempt from equipment taxes and sales taxes, its mission may permit payment of an agreed PILOT to the local tax authorities, to offset the impact upon local services funded by town residents. The size of such payments can be controversial, especially where the organization appears to have federal income from taxable activities. For example, the tax-exempt Appalachian Mountain Club operates a modern hotel for its members in Carroll, New Hampshire, paying a negotiated PILOT amount to the town. A competing commercial hotel would also pay "meals and beds" taxes.
As an incentive for investment in taxable infrastructure or other facilities that create a public benefit, a PILOT may be negotiated to limit or defer the property taxes on a developer, striking a balance between public and private economic needs. In effect, the local taxpayers are subsidizing the development, which might otherwise have gone elsewhere. This has occurred in poor rural areas where large wind energy systems are often placed, providing cost relief to the owner and a limited tax payment to the locals.
Economic Concerns During the Recent Recession

Payments in lieu of taxes for nonprofit organizations are voluntary. However, with the recent recession that began in 2008, some cities want this to change.[4][5] At issue are the vast amounts of land owned by universities, hospitals, churches, and other nonprofit organizations. The tax-exempt status granted to these entities by the IRS means that property taxes that would have been paid to municipalities had this land been owned by private individuals or companies are not collected.

According to a 2010 report by the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy,[6] between 2000 and 2010 PILOTs were used in at least 18 states. Seventeen of those states account for 35 cities and towns with PILOTs. In addition, 82 out of a total of 351 municipalities in Massachusetts have collected PILOTs (Massachusetts Department of Revenue 2003). A map in this report also reveals that although these 18 states can be found scattered across the country, the vast majority of this activity seems to be concentrated in the northeast.

For many municipalities in the United States, property taxes are a primary source of revenue. The amount of forgone tax revenue as a result of these tax-exempt land parcels is significant. The president of the city council of Baltimore, MD, recently estimated that his city loses $120 million annually from these foregone taxes.[7] Taxable values for properties within municipalities that are charged a tax have dropped due to the mortgage crisis, further decreasing local coffers.

At the same time, these entities enjoy the same level of service the rest of the residents of the given city or county enjoy. These services include fire, police, sewer, trash collection, etc. It is argued that asking some, or all, nonprofits to pay taxes, either voluntarily, or via statutory measures, would help offset some of these costs and ease the strain on local budgets.[8] This would be equivalent to increasing the tax base in these areas. Many nonprofits, whose own budgets are dwindling, fear this trend. There is, however, no evidence this trend will have any impact upon the exemptions that nonprofits enjoy from other forms of taxation outside of property taxes.

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Deals that lead to lost property taxes
Wednesday, December 19, 2007, 11:29 PM A A A
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New York City lost more than $100 million in property taxes last year because of privately negotiated deals with some of the world's richest companies.
The companies - including behemoths like JPMorgan Chase, Pfizer and NBC - have paid a fraction of their normal property tax bill for years through these little-known deals, commonly called PILOTs (Payments in Lieu of Taxes).
An internal Bloomberg administration report obtained by the Daily News shows:
The giant American International Group paid nothing in PILOTs for fiscal 2007, saving $4.1 million on its annual property tax bill.
The American Stock Exchange, that symbol of the free market, paid a mere $1,070 in PILOTs - far less than a South Bronx homeowner would pay in taxes. The exchange's tax break from City Hall saved it nearly $1.5 million.
JPMorgan Chase paid just $1.9million in PILOTs, 20% of the $9.6 million in property taxes it normally would be assessed.
Most New Yorkers are aware of the outrageous $10 million property tax exemption Madison Square Garden has enjoyed for decades, courtesy of the state Legislature.
So why haven't we heard much about these other tax giveaways in, say, the liberal New York Times? Maybe because the newspaper of record is feeding at the same trough.
The Times paid $219,000 in PILOTs last year for its new printing plant in College Point, Queens, the report said. That's a paltry 13% of the $1.7 million assessed tax on the Times plant.
The undisputed king of PILOTs is real estate developer Bruce Ratner. His Forest City/Ratner firm paid the city $9.7 million last year for half a dozen commercial buildings the company owns in downtown Brooklyn. That sounds like a lot of money - until you realize it's only one-third of the company's actual $26.3 million property tax bill.
That doesn't even count PILOTs that have yet to kick in for Forest City's Atlantic Yards mega-project.
Forest City spokesman Loren Riegelhaupt defended the company's success at landing PILOT subsidies.
"A lot of those buildings in MetroTech were constructed when downtown Brooklyn was not what it was today," Riegelhaupt said. "Many businesses were fleeing to New Jersey in the 1990s, and we were willing to invest in that area when others wouldn't."
City Hall has routinely doled out these PILOT deals for decades, usually as part of a larger incentive package to get companies to stay in town or expand their business.
Government watchdog groups say the absence of uniform standards makes the whole PILOT program open to abuse, because each company gets to negotiate its own private deal. In addition, companies that fail to meet their original job creation promises rarely get penalized.
Until recently, no one knew exactly how much the tax breaks were costing the city. Then in 2005, after city Controller William Thompson released an audit blasting the city's poor monitoring of PILOTs, the City Council passed a law requiring the mayor's office to supply the Council speaker with a report of all PILOT revenues and expenditures.
The News recently obtained copies of those reports, which are sent quarterly from the city Office of Management and Budget to City Council Speaker Christine Quinn.
They reveal that some 300 companies and nonprofit groups enjoy long-term PILOT deals. A few of those deals date back to the Koch and Dinkins eras, but most were arranged under Mayors Rudy Giuliani and Bloomberg.
Last year, discounted PILOTs amounted to $107 million in lost revenue to the city, with abatements averaging a whopping 60% per company.
It should come as no surprise that some of the city's powerhouse companies landed the juiciest deals. Just 15 companies enjoyed more than two-thirds of the total tax savings in fiscal 2007, the report shows.
Besides Forest City, AIG, Chase and The Times, top beneficiaries include Morgan Stanley, Bear Stearns, NBC, Pfizer, McGraw-Hill and the Hearst Corp. In NBC's case, the company has received three separate PILOT deals over the past 20 years from Koch, Giuliani and Bloomberg