Scarsdale Tax Scheme Unlikely to Pass Muster With The IRS

The Village Board’s 95% tax evasion scheme hasn't a ghost of a chance of passing muster with the US Treasury. No reasonable person believes that curbside collection of table scraps or intermittent repair of our roads really qualify as charitable endeavors, or that property tax payments have ever been a form of charity. This feckless scheme is nothing more than a cynical CYA response by a group called out for producing a budget document that contained not a single word about tax reform’s virtual non-deductibility of property taxes and for passing a budget with no plans for relief to Scarsdale taxpayers.

When we called out the Board at a recent Board of Trustees meeting for its failure to address tax reform in its budget, we offered many reasonable suggestions to provide cost savings to Scarsdale residents. Among these were:

· Scarsdale taxing authorities should remove from their budgets all activities that are not public goods and would legitimately be considered charitable endeavors and establish a 501c3 “Community Chest”. The Community Chest would fund these activities from private charitable contributions that are deductible to all donors regardless of AMT status. These activities would include social services including any housing and care for the disabled and elderly, psychological services, sports, etc.

• Scarsdale taxing authorities should find efficiencies by consolidating services with neighboring communities, using technology in replace of human resources where possible, and privatizing certain services that are not purely public goods (letting the private sector compete for our resident’s business).

· Scarsdale taxing authorities should cut all budgets immediately by 10% across the board and allow managers to present their cases for restoration of half of that cut. Scarsdale taxes should be cut commensurately.

The only response we received in return was Mayor Hochvert’s diatribe at last week’s BOT meeting about the fact that we made these suggestions during the public comment session at a prior meeting without have attended one of his budget sessions. (As if that should disqualify us).

Mayor Hochvert’s approach is clearly to ignore us and do nothing for Scarsdale residents but instead buy cover with his ridiculous tax evasion scheme.

Robert Selvaggio is an economist and long-time resident of Scarsdale.