State, Pelham Assessor Fix Tax Exemption Glitch

More than 150 Pelhamites were mistakenly informed that they would lose out on a state property tax exemption this year, the town's assessor said last week, but the problem has now been fixed.

A new state law bars New Yorkers with household incomes of more than $500,000 from qualifying for the exemption, known as Basic STAR, which knocks $30,000 off the assessed value of a home for the purposes of calculating property taxes. Because of a glitch in the database the state uses to match assessments with income tax returns, about 4,000 state residents who qualify for STAR received letters last month telling them they were no longer eligible.

That included 161 Pelham residents, according to town assessor Michele Casandra, along with 20 people who remained "undetermined" because of a lack of information. According to Geoff Gloak, a spokesman for the state Department of Taxation and Finance, the agency quickly fixed the error and sent letters of apology to those affected.

"We're very confident in the corrected data, and in the process for future years," Gloak said, adding that the initial process of comparing data on 3 million homeowners to 10 million income tax returns was daunting, and resulted in some mistakes.

With the data corrected, 351 Pelhamites will lose the STAR exemption, Casandra said, with another 130 undetermined. Homeowners are "undetermined," she said, for a variety of reasons. For example, some women have their maiden name on a deed but file their taxes under their married name. The town is currently in the process of reaching out to those 130 homeowners to determine their incomes.

The state tracks income using Social Security numbers, she said, "but there are no Social Security numbers associated with our [assessment] files." As a result, some town residents have had to fill out forms that outline their earnings. That information is then sent to Albany to be compared with tax filings.

Casandra added that her office received updated information from the state about two weeks ago, and moved quickly to send STAR approval letters to those who were erroneously told they did not qualify. The last letters were mailed out around the first of March.

The new law, she said, has been a burden for the town's two-woman assessment office.

"In a town where we annually reassess property with only two people, it's burdensome" to take on the additional work of reviewing residents' incomes, she said. "The state is monitoring [income], but when they can't determine it that work falls back on our office."

She added that she already grapples with about 200 applications each year for Enhanced STAR, which provides additional exemptions to seniors, veterans and nonprofit groups.

"Exemption administration is very burdensome in this state," Casandra said, even before the new income limit was put in place.

According to Gloak, the new law bars about 49,000 New Yorkers from receiving the STAR exemption.