February 3, 2007: Vol. 30, No. 5
Past issues
The Paper in print
RSS feeds
Print edition (PDF)
Email Alerts- The current issue
- Neighborhood Map
- Bay Ridge
- Bensonhurst, Dyker Heights
- Brooklyn Heights
- Downtown, DUMBO
- Carroll Gardens
- Cobble Hill, Red Hook, Boerum Hill
- Fort Greene
- Clinton Hill, Crown Heights
- North Brooklyn
- Williamsburg, Greenpoint, Bushwick
- Park Slope
- Prospect Heights, Windsor Terrace, Greenwood Heights
- GO Brooklyn
- Brooklyn Cyclones
- Not Just Nets
- Police Blotter
- Perspective
- Parenting
- Politics
- Transit
- Podcasts
- The Brooklyn Bride
- Brooklyn Boom
- Classifieds
- Merchant news
- About The Paper
- RSS Feeds
-
Gentile in tax smackdown with Bloomy
The Brooklyn Paper
Similar stories
Print this story
digg
del.icio.usA Bay Ridge councilman wants to put more money — $400 more — in your wallet than Mayor Bloomberg.
Hizzoner unveiled a property tax cut in his state of the city speech last week — but Councilman Vince Gentile (D-Bay Ridge) slammed it as weak.
The Mayor’s plan calls for a one-year, five-percent reduction in property taxes and a $400 rebate for all property owners.
“The mayor’s plan has no real relief because property owners will just be getting back the extra money they’re about to pay in increased assessments,” said Gentile.
Property tax rates are determined by an annual city assessment of individual property values — if the value increases, so does the property owner’s taxes.
In Gentile’s plan, owners of one-, two-and three-family homes, co-ops and condos would get both the tax cut and a $1,200 rebate.
The money would come from a forecasted $1.5-billion surplus in the retiree health benefits trust fund.
“I think the momentum and the sentiment is there in the Council to make this happen,” said Gentile.
The city’s Department of Finance would not comment on Gentile’s proposal.
But while the councilman and Bloomberg may bicker, their proposals are fairly similar, according to Doug Turetsky, the spokesman for the Independent Budget Office.
“There’s a common feature in both of their proposals — neither of them provide property tax relief to the bulk of New York City households, which is renters,” said Turetsky.
“To some degree, the landlord is passing some portion of his or her [tax] costs to the tenant.
And, just because taxes go down one year, it’s not likely that the landlord will pass that reduction along.”
So for renters, at least, there’s no relief in sight.
©2007 The Brooklyn Paper
Enter your comment below
By submitting this comment, you agree to the following terms:
You agree that you, and not BrooklynPaper.com or its affiliates, are fully responsible for the content that you post. You agree not to post any abusive, obscene, vulgar, slanderous, hateful, threatening or sexually-oriented material or any material that may violate applicable law; doing so may lead to the removal of your post and to your being permanently banned from posting to the site. You grant to BrooklynPaper.com the royalty-free, irrevocable, perpetual and fully sublicensable license to use, reproduce, modify, adapt, publish, translate, create derivative works from, distribute, perform and display such content in whole or in part world-wide and to incorporate it in other works in any form, media or technology now known or later developed.
