Harckham Passes Five Bills to Protect Taxpayers

Senator Pete Harckham announced the passage of five of his bills by the New York State Senate that will spur municipal tax savings, new tax revenue that’s not from residents and refunds to some taxpayers.

“One of my top priorities throughout this session has been protecting Hudson Valley taxpayers and these bills help address solutions to this challenge,” said Harckham. “My bills passed this week will ensure municipal tax savings and additional tax revenue that does not come from our taxpayers' pockets.”

The five bills are:

S2612 Provides that state owned land in Westchester County should be subject to taxation, which will result in additional revenue for Westchester municipalities.

S2613A Provides that state owned land in Dutchess County should be subject to taxation, which will result in additional revenue for Dutchess municipalities.

S3816 Allows Mt. Pleasant to adopt a hotel tax — a tax that raises money for the municipality without any taxes levied on residents.

S6257A Authorizes the comptroller to issue a refund to Mt. Pleasant taxpayers resulting from lost mail. When the mail was lost in Mt. Pleasant, many residents had their taxes deemed delinquent. This legislation waives the delinquency fee for NYS taxes and mandates a refund, if already paid.

S3972 Mandates that businesses utilizing the incentive known as payment in lieu of taxes (PILOTS), which allows them to challenge their property tax assessments and win a credit against future payments, have any reductions in payments that they have won take effect the following taxable status year, protecting fixed school budgets.