Taxes
Public Sector compensation in New York State
Submitted by cnarbey on Wed, 11/11/2009 - 2:06pmThis presentation by the Westchester County Association is worth a read:
Carmel Central School District's "Community Open Forum"
Submitted by DavidE on Tue, 11/10/2009 - 6:04pmAs KFW members have discussed many times, the biggest slice of local taxes, by far, goes to fund the Carmel Central School District. I note that on the District's web site is a newly posted invitation to the annual Community Open Forum at which the Board of Education and the Superintendent "would like to get your feedback on several priority areas including Curriculum and Instruction, Communications, Budget and Finance, and Facilities and Transportation. Your input is valuable in assisting us in our planning, especially as we begin to prepare our 2010-2011 budget." The District will hold the forum on December 8 at 8:00 PM at the George Fischer Middle school. If you'd like to go, you have to register before December 2.
Sadly, the invitation fails to say what, if anything, will be done with the input the forum generates, and some of my cynical friends who have been to previous editions of this event claim its sole purpose is to let the District fill in a check box on some state form without having to lie about it. Still, it is a forum to talk to those who spend the bulk of our local taxes about what they're doing with all that money. And maybe the cynics have it all wrong. We can only hope so.
The 2009-2010 budget for the school district is here. The fiscal accountability supplement to the New York State School Report Card is here. And there's lots more on the District's budget page. So let 'em know you're coming, read up on where your money's going, and ask questions.
Property Tax Reform & STAR Checks
Submitted by kfwadmin on Wed, 10/14/2009 - 8:40amBelow is a letter sent by Victor Tiship to NYS Senator Vincent Leibell on the subject of property taxes and STAR checks. It is worth a read:
Dear Senator Leibell,
The recent mailing from you regarding property taxes and the STAR rebates ignores or glosses over several important elements: How you intend to pay for the STAR checks, and true reform versus short-sighted relief. With the state in economic crisis, now is no time for further feel-good expenditure absent specific long-term reform goals. You said in your mailer that you were working on a solution to our sky-high property taxes but the STAR checks do little or nothing to really end the burden of crushing property taxes. Other than service cuts or further increases in taxes and fees I can think of no way - save for borrowing against the future - that STAR can continue as it has in the past. If you know of any other ways to pay for STAR, please let me know what they are!
As well, I firmly believe that property taxpayers across the state support and would benefit greatly by a shift of education funding from property taxes to an income-based system and a return to a graduated income tax. Myself, along with Jeff Green, a fellow Kent resident, have been active in this fight and worked to press the County Legislature and the Towns of Kent and Putnam Valley to pass resolutions in support of Assembly member Kevin Cahill's "Equity in Education Act" (A6009) or (S5118 - Schneiderman.) which they all have done; can I have your assurance that you will support this reform vision and Mr. Schneiderman's bill in the Senate?
It is well known that this proposal for reform would resolve many problems for property tax payers, renters and others, who are being crushed under the burden of property tax-based education funding. STAR was put into place as an attempt to alleviate some of the pain of ever increasing property taxes, but it requires funding that we just do not have any longer, and checks are sent to “each and every property tax payer”, rich or poor, as your mailing states, rather than only those really in need; that is a travesty. Personally, I feel these problems could be resolved by returning to a broad, graduated income tax, as the Cahill/Schneiderman bills call for, from which the $25 billion required for state-wide education funding, would be found. Studies by the NY Fiscal Policy Institute have found that more than 90% of NY's taxpayers (voters) would see an actual reduction in their over-all tax bills if this approach were to become law; the only thing missing are vision, commitment and courage.
We need property tax REFORM, not superficial relief. We need an end to oppressive and unsustainable residential property taxes to fund education and change from a property tax to an income-based system. We need equal opportunity in education for all New York kids, whether from rich or poor districts. We need a return to true progressive income taxation so the rich start to pay what is arguably their fair share again, and to close tax loopholes. We need school district (and other) consolidation to save currently wasted resources and tax dollars inherent in the local district model. We need to stop taxing our precious farmland and small farmers out of existence, forcing them to sell their land into more development. We need to stop forcing our citizens, especially seniors, out of their homes if they can’t pay out-of-control property taxes; this approach would give “home-security” to all segments of our society, whether rich, middle-class, or poor, senior or beginning families. We also need both school and local taxes included in property tax reform.
If you truly want to help New York’s property tax payers, I hope you will work for real reform and support S5118/AO6009, rather than the unaffordable and ineffectual STAR relief. The voters will support and reward you for your courage.
Best,
Best,
Victor Tiship
Kent Cliffs
New York State Taxes Sick People
Submitted by DavidE on Sun, 08/16/2009 - 12:02pmI bet you didn't know that the State of New York taxes you for seeing a doctor. Or going to a hospital. Or a clinic. And the tax isn't small. As of April 1, 2009 it's a whopping 9.63%. About the only people who escape this tax are those on Medicare or Medicaid. Sure, the State calls it a "surcharge," but a tax by any other name is still a tax. The reason you've never seen this tax on seeking medical help is that it's usually hidden in what you pay — the same way that gasoline taxes are hidden. New York's doctors, hospitals and clinics are required to turn over 9.63% of what you'd pay without the surcharge, so they just add it to your bill before you see it.
Like you, I had no idea this was going on. I only tripped over it when one of my providers, Memorial Sloan-Kettering, changed its billing system to move the surcharge out from behind the curtain. It now shows up as a separate line item the way sales tax does. Finding it bizarre that the State thinks it's reasonable to levy a special tax on sick people, I looked into it. Sure enough, the NYS Department of Health's website spells it out pretty clearly. See, for example, the letter to "Dear Payor/Provider" of April 1, 2009 in which the new, increased surcharge is announced.
Still not willing to believe it, I wrote to the e-mail address given at the bottom of the page to see if I understood correctly. After about a month of being a pest trying to get someone to respond, I got an e-mail from Michelle Levesque, Bureau of HCRA Operations and Financial Analysis, NYS Department of Health. She explains:
David,
The surcharge is required to be assessed by designated HCRA [NYS Health Care Reform Act] providers (as of 10/1/00 they are : General Hospitals, Amb-Surg, and D&TC) on certain services that they provide. Note: There are exemptions (ie Medicare covered services are not surchargeable). The surcharge is 9.63% for services on and after 4/1/09.
The surcharge is required to be assessed by designated HCRA [NYS Health Care Reform Act] providers (as of 10/1/00 they are : General Hospitals, Amb-Surg, and D&TC) on certain services that they provide. Note: There are exemptions (ie Medicare covered services are not surchargeable). The surcharge is 9.63% for services on and after 4/1/09.
The surcharge funds the "Public Goods Pool" which is a fund that is set aside to fund necessary programs to assist the public such as preserving rural health care, funding poison control centers, and substantially funding the Child Health Plus insurance program for uninsured children.
Consumers may have a responsibility to pay the surcharge depending on the policy they have with their insurance carrier (ie deductible, 80/20 coverage). For example, if a person changes insurance carrier, or if their carrier changes what they cover, they might start seeing a surcharge where they didn't before.
If you would like to discuss details on how/why it appears on your bill, please call me or another HCRA representative at 518-474-1673.
Additionally, you may go to our website to find out more: http://www.health.state.ny.us/nysdoh/hcra/hcrahome.htm
Thank you,
Michelle
What she means when she says "[c]onsumers may have a responsibility to pay" is that they might actually see the charges. Of course they have to pay. The money's got to come from somewhere, right? And you can bet the "HCRA providers" and the insurance companies aren't just going to eat it. The money comes from people who seek medical help in New York — either directly or in the form of increased insurance premiums.
Now I'm all in favor of "preserving rural health care, funding poison control centers, and substantially funding the Child Health Plus insurance program for uninsured children" and Michelle is just administering what the Legislature decided was best for us. But is it really right, sensible or moral for the State to pay for these services by taxing the sick? This is an outrageous, sleazy system: The sicker you are, the more the State takes out of you. Just the sort of system you'd expect a thoroughly dysfunctional Legislature to impose.
I applaud Memorial Sloan-Kettering for moving this hidden sick-people tax out into the open where patients can see it. I wish all of New York's health care providers would do the same. If that happened, even our pitiful excuse for a Legislature might be motivated to do something sensible.
David Ehnebuske
Please Make Your Voices Heard on Property Tax Reform
Submitted by joyce.mitchell1 on Fri, 05/08/2009 - 7:55pmThis message is from Victor Tiship.
Please make your voices heard on vital property tax REFORM, not relief, in New York! The State Legislature is gauging public support for a number of proposals on this issue at this site: Please forward to your NY networks.
I have been a proponent of true property tax reform for many years. I have and continue to be a supporter of Kevin Cahill’s reform bill, the Equity in Education Act AO6009. His bill takes 5 years to be fully implemented. Many of us need property tax reform now and cannot wait for 3 or 5 years. The Krueger Circuit Breaker aims to bring some measure of relief to property owners right away, but it is not the complete answer IMO. The numerous benefits the Cahill Bill offers are the real deal and offers a complete package of reform. Cahill eliminates residential property taxes in full to fund education within NYS and shifts that burden to INCOME. It guarantees every child in NY a full quality education, even if they come from a “poor” district. It calls for a return to pre 1972 true progressive income tax brackets so the rich will once again have to pay their fair share and those of modest means do not have to pay so much of their income as the essentially flat tax we have had since 1972 requires. I believe that our vital small farmers and farmland would not be given over to “developers” if property taxes did not force it onto the market; that goes for “vacant” residential land too. Cahill has many advantages and will bring real reform to NY and help save many of our fellow citizens from choosing between moving out or staying and continue to pay an unfair and onerous percentage of their income to fund education, while some corporations and rich evade their responsibilities to our society.
http://assembly.state.ny.us/leg/?bn=A06009 Find the Cahill Equity in Education Act here.
The Krueger circuit breaker bill offered in the senate, S4239, and supported by the Omnibus Consortium and Frank Mauro of the Fiscal Policy Institute, promises quick relief for at-risk homeowners, and should be supported, but does not offer the long term advantages of Cahill, IMO. I can see the two being passed together, with the Krueger bill bringing quick relief to many in need, while the Cahill bill is being phased in over the requisite 5 years. The two passed and running concurrently, could, if the political will and integrity in Albany existed, bring the critical REFORM our state needs NOW, especially in this “economic downturn”. They need a stout hickory sapling lashed to their spines, and your voice along with that of our neighbors and friends might help accomplish that.
http://assembly.state.ny.us/leg/?bn=S04239 Krueger circuit breaker bill here.
Consortium Praises Legislative Leaders for their Public Commitment to Enact Meaningful Property Tax Relief before the End of Session
Submitted by kfwadmin on Fri, 04/03/2009 - 8:07am
(Albany, N.Y.) — A coalition of property tax-reform groups, fiscal watchdogs, and unions praised Senate Majority Leader Malcolm Smith, Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver and Governor David Paterson for their public commitment to enact meaningful property tax relief by the end of this legislative session. The Consortium urged them to pass the Omnibus Property Tax Relief and Reform Act’s middle income Circuit Breaker with the revenue generated from the elimination of the STAR rebate check program.
The Consortium members all agree that the STAR Rebates were useless when it came to providing meaningful property tax relief. The program provided relatively small checks to everyone regardless of need and did not address the problem of New Yorkers being taxed out of their homes by excessive property tax burdens. The Omnibus Circuit Breaker
(www.omnibustaxsolution.org) will cover overburdened renters as well as homeowners and will include municipal and other ad valorem taxes in addition to school taxes.
“Our consortium partners and I believe the passage of the Omnibus Tax Relief and Reform Act is necessary to balance the needs of property taxpayers and the fiscal needs of the state,” said Gioia Shebar, coordinator of Taxnightmare.org and member of the Ulster County Blue Ribbon Commission. “The consortium is calling for a phased in circuit breaker for homeowners and renters that would start next year, allowing the state to use the savings generated through the elimination of STAR rebate checks to balance the budget this year and take some additional savings next year to help balance the budget as well.”
“Property tax groups and others across the state are urging the Legislature and Governor to enact the Omnibus Tax Relief and Reform Act,” stated Ron Deutsch, Executive Director of New Yorkers for Fiscal Fairness. “Senator Smith and Speaker Silver have shown a strong commitment to meaningful property tax relief for homeowners and renters by supporting the circuit breaker approach our Consortium has outlined.”
Many reformers have called upon the state for years to make New York’s overall tax system more equitable by reducing the state’s reliance on local property and sales taxes and increasing its reliance on state taxes based on ability to pay. Unfortunately, nothing has been done to date to either address the long term structural problem (that New York State policies put an undue amount of pressure on the property tax) or to effectively address the critical short term problem of people being taxed out of their homes.
The new commitment from the leaders provided hope to many groups that have been fighting for relief for a very long time.
Susan Zimet, Ulster County legislator and director of Tax Reform Agenda said that, “The Omnibus Bill is the answer to this property tax problem. When you have constituents paying 20-30 percent of their income in property taxes you must develop a targeted program to provide relief to those individuals before they are forced to leave their homes. We need a program that provides overburdened property tax payers with immediate help and that is the Omnibus Bill’s Circuit Breaker. And in regards to the real reform, the long term solution as outlined in the Omnibus Bill must also be implemented.”
"What makes this approach really extraordinary is that it includes fiscally responsible plans both for urgently needed relief and for long-term structural reform of the property tax system. Both are critically important,” stated John Whiteley of the New York State Property Tax Reform Coalition.
"Since it is phased in over several years, the circuit breaker included in our bill will immediately help our most overburdened taxpayers remain in their homes while still enabling the state to achieve tax relief savings in the next two budget years. Longer term, to fund services fairly and efficiently in this state and to prevent future crises, we need to reduce the overdependence on the local property tax which has been allowed to develop over the past
several years. This archaic system is seriously out of synch with
the economic and fiscal realities of the 21st century, having little relationship to one's ability to pay. The modest increase in broad- based state funding projected in this bill to replace a portion of the local property tax over the next decade will promote tax fairness and greater funding equity among our school districts and local governments," continued Whiteley
Frank Mauro, executive director of the Fiscal Policy Institute said that, “In addition to providing for the assumption by the state, over a reasonable period of time, of a targeted $10 billion in local government responsibilities, the Omnibus Act also provides for the creation of a tax reform study commission, with members to be appointed by the Governor and all four parties in the Legislature, and the establishment of a statutory requirement for both a periodic study of the incidence of the overall state-local tax system and analyses of the distributional impact of proposed tax legislation.
These are all essential steps if New Yorkers are to have real tax reform.”
During the last two years, local real property tax reform groups, fiscal watchdogs and unions have been successful in making the idea of a middle class circuit breaker a front burner issue in New York State government and politics. Large portions of the public understand what a circuit breaker is, and there is broad public support for the idea of a middle class circuit breaker as a way to deal with situations in which homeowners are significantly
overburdened by their property taxes. It is important that New York
policymakers seize this opportunity to phase in an effective middle class circuit breaker. But it is equally important that they adopt a long term strategic approach to moving a significant amount of costs from the local to the state levels in a way that achieves true tax reform.
Members of the Omnibus Consortium have been working together over the past 9 months on legislation that would reform the property tax system to provide immediate relief to overburdened homeowners through creation of a property tax circuit breaker — with the long-term goal of creating a fair and equitable tax system by shifting costs from the local level to the state.
Short Term: Circuit Breaker Relief – How It Works:
Significant work has been done in the Legislature regarding the development of a circuit breaker bill by Assemblywomen Galef and Senator Little. The Omnibus Tax Reform bill builds upon these wonderful ideas to create a relatively generous middle class circuit breaker (limiting a person’s property taxes to a fixed percentage of their income) that would be phased in over a period of four years.
Governor Paterson has proposed eliminating the STAR rebates checks in his budget proposal as one means of closing our state’s large budget deficit. The Omnibus Bill proposes to use the money from the elimination of the Star Rebate Program to finance its proposed reforms. But the move from the current rebate checks program to an effective middle class circuit breaker would not have a financial implication for the state until SFY 2010-11 and, therefore, would in no way detract from the Governor’s proposed use of this money in the current fiscal year for deficit reduction.
The Omnibus Bill’s circuit breaker would limit the cost of the proposed middle class circuit breaker by adopting the Galef-Little bill’s proposed 5-year residency requirement. The costs would also be phased in by gradually increasing the program’s income limits and by phasing in coverage for renters during the second and third years of the phase-in. By replacing the STAR rebate check program with an effective middle class circuit breaker, the omnibus bill would replace a program that provides relatively small checks to virtually all homeowners in the state with a circuit breaker credit that will target more meaningful relief to those homeowners who are truly overburdened by their property taxes. The multi-year "phased in"
approach is designed to be sensitive to the state's fiscal situation while recognizing that homeowners most overburdened by unreasonable levels of property taxation are part of the overall financial crisis and need help immediately.
Long Term: Tax Reform
The Omnibus Bill proposes to significantly decrease the pressure placed on the local property tax base (municipal, school and county) by gradually shifting $10 billion of costs from the local level to the state level. This shift from the local level to the state would represent a shift from the regressive local tax base to more progressive state taxes based on ability to pay. This shift would cover $6 billion in school costs, $1 billion in local Medicaid costs and $3 billion in the cost of basic municipal services.
Education:
The foundation formula reform plan, enacted into law in 2007, represents an important breakthrough in the way that the state government shares in the cost of education with local school districts. The new formula establishes a foundation funding level for each school district in the state and provides a basis for estimating the cost of providing a sound, basic education. The formula also provides a basis for making sure that we treat all school districts in the state in a fair and equitable way.
Current law provides that the foundation formula be fully funded in 2010-11. The total foundation funding level for the 2010-11 school year under the foundation formula as enacted in 2007 and as modified earlier this year, is an estimated $36.6 billion. Based on the statutory formulas by which responsibility for funding this foundation amount is divided between the state and the local school districts, it is anticipated that in 2010-11 that the state will provide an estimated $18 billion in foundation aid to local districts, or just about 49 percent.
The omnibus bill proposes that once the initial 4-year phase-in of the new foundation formula is completed in 2010-11 and the State Education Commissioner has completed an updating of the basic “per pupil foundation amount,” that in addition to paying its current share of the foundation amount, that the state also gradually increase its share of the total foundation amount. The omnibus bill includes a commitment to shift $6 billion of such responsibility from the local property tax base to the state tax base over the course of the decade beginning with the 2012-13 school year.
Local Government Assistance:
For general-purpose local governments, cities, towns and villages, the primary pressure that the state has placed on local governments has been negative because the state is not sticking to its revenue sharing commitment. The underlying law, which gets notwithstood every year, is that the state is supposed to share 8 percent of revenue with local governments. In the 1980s, when Hugh Carey was governor, NYS had its first freeze on revenue sharing in order to allow one of the state’s earliest multi-year income tax cuts to be phased in as scheduled despite the recession that the nation was then experiencing. In the budget problems of the early 1990s, no major state program was cut more than revenue sharing—from over $1 billion
a year to less than $500 million. The omnibus bill provides that
over ten years beginning with the 2012-13 state fiscal year that the state phase in a $3 billion increase in revenue sharing with its cities, towns and villages.
Medicaid:
In regard to Medicaid, the state should honor its commitment to picking up increases in the local share in excess of 3 percent per year. But in addition to this, the omnibus bill would gradually increase the state share of Medicaid costs in a way that bases each county’s share of Medicaid costs on objective measures of each county’s relative “ability to pay” and, in the course of doing so, shifts an additional$1 billion in costs (over and above whatever may be the costs of the 3% cap) from the local property tax base to the state tax base.
The bill also provides for the creation of a tax reform study commission, with members to be appointed by the Governor and all four parties in the Legislature, and the establishment of a statutory requirement for both a periodic study of the incidence of the overall state-local tax system and analyses of the distributional impact of proposed tax legislation. These are all essential steps if New Yorkers are to have real tax reform.
Omnibus Consortium Members
Susan Zimet, Ulster County Legislator- Chair Ulster County Blue Ribbon Commission on School Funding and Tax Reform (Ulster BRC) and Property Tax Agenda Rich Gerentine, Ulster County Legislator, Ulster BRC John Whiteley, Tri-County Tax Reform, NYS Property Tax Reform Coalition Roberta Whiteley-Tri County Tax Reform Robert McKeon-TREND (Tax Reform Effort of Northern Dutchess County), Tax Reform Coordinator Bernetta Calderone- Taxnightmare Coordinating Committee- Women's Issues Leader for Correction Dept., Ulster BRC Tara O'Connor-Alisse, Taxnightmare.org Coordinating Committee -Ulster BRC Sam Davis, Putnam Reform Group, Taxnightmare.org Coordinating Committee Gioia Shebar- Coordinator, Taxnightmare.org, Ulster BRC Bill Hecht- Cayuga County Property Tax Reform Coordinator Frank Mauro, Fiscal Policy Institute, author of the Omnibus Property Tax Relief and Reform Bill Ron Deutsch, New Yorkers for Fiscal Fairness, Omnibus Consortium Coordinator Melinda Person, NYSUT Billy Easton, Alliance for Quality Education Ellie and Bill Trumpbour, N.Y. Farm Bureau Jason Angell, Center for Working Families Victor Bach, Community Service Society ###
When People Raise Their Voices...
Submitted by joyce.mitchell1 on Tue, 03/31/2009 - 9:35pmThe members of the Property Tax Reform Coalition of New York State did just that. And they've been heard. Although their recent campaign heralds an approach that I personally think is a band-aid, it will, when passed, give economic relief to many home owners who may be on the brink of economic disaster, to which our regressive property tax system contributes. The measure is called a Circuit Breaker and sets limits on the amount of property tax you can be assessed based on a percentage of your income.
The members of NYSPTR mounted an e-mail, fax and telephone campaign that caught the attention of and won the support of Assembly Leader, Sheldon Silver, and Majority Leader, Malcolm Smith. And they will keep pounding the wires until the legislature takes action and probably passes this legislation.
Readers may go to the site of this coalition to learn more about the Circuit Breaker. As many probably know, the largest portion of our property tax goes to support the school district in which we live. It is my opinion, and many share it, that we must find a way to support the cost of public education by NYState Income Tax. There is a bill hung up in committtee...the Cahill Bill...that, if passed, would accomplish just that and it is projected that only the highest earning 8% of all New Yorkers would pay a higher amount of tax. Can you imagine that your property tax could be reduced by as much as 70%? And your income tax would not go up? To find out more go to this website:
http://www.nyspropertytaxreform.org/
