Westchester Coronavirus Update: Waiving Property Tax Late Fees

WESTCHESTER COUNTY, NY — As the new coronavirus continues to wreak havoc on the economy, county and local officials have worked out two ways to substantially reduce penalties for late payment of property taxes in Westchester. The deadline for payment remains April 30.

A new law compliments the Executive Order that Gov. Andrew Cuomo granted County Executive George Latimer permitting him to remove late fees for county residents and business who qualify for a hardship exemption for the late payment of their property taxes.

These only apply to those taxpayers who have not yet paid their local and county taxes, officials said. No refunds can be given for payments already received.

The hardship exemption qualifications are:

• A residential taxpayer must pay their property taxes directly, not through a bank or mortgage escrow account
• The taxpayer must be enrolled in the STAR program and fully qualified for STAR benefits
• The taxpayer must complete a single-page form attesting to their status of hardship, based on loss of wages, closure of business or other similar loss related to the COVID-19 outbreak
• Business owners must make a similar assertion that their business has closed or lost substantial revenue due to the COVID-19 outbreak
• Owners of rental units of six or fewer may also make claim for this hardship status.

The law authorizes towns to reduce late-payment penalties for all other town property taxpayers, regardless of specific hardship qualification, by as much as 80 percent through July 15.

The two-pronged tax relief program, developed through the cooperation of state, county and municipal officials, is meant to provide meaningful relief on both a targeted and broad basis to Westchester taxpayers struggling through a challenging time.

Latimer signed the bill into law on Zoom with members of the county legislature present, at the beginning of his Monday briefing on the new coronavirus outbreak.

The new coronavirus is both a public health and a fiscal challenge, said Ben Boykin, chair of the Westchester Board of Legislators. "We will be dealing with these challenges for a long time."

If you haven't paid your property taxes, call your municipal tax office, Latimer said.

The county executive said it was too hard to predict what in Westchester might re-open in mid-May, when the NY-PAUSE program is scheduled to end. Cuomo said Monday the shutdown could be extended for some parts of the downstate region.

"I don't think an across the board reopening with a snap of the fingers makes sense," Latimer said. For example, he doubted that amusement parks and pools could open at all this summer.

"There are a couple of different philosophies — one that the whole society should be shut down, no activity outside the house. There are other people who feel we've been shut down long enough and want everything open right away," he said. "Our administration takes the attitude that neither of those polarities are wise or practicable."

He said that he looked forward to talking with the governor about the short-term future of the Westchester County Center, which has just finished being turned into an overflow hospital.

At his briefing Monday, Cuomo said he thought it might be prudent to keep it available until the end of the year, when flu season might be complicated by a second wave of the new coronavirus.

"If it never is used as a hospital that would be fine with me," Latimer said.

The county continues to see signs that the outbreak is slowing, Latimer said. While Westchester's total count is 28,007 confirmed cases, the number of active cases is down to 8,221. "That is less active cases of COVID-19 than existed on March 29, so we have made significant improvement in the past month," he said.

Only 877 people are hospitalized in the county, down from 1,200 people just two weeks ago.

Still, he stopped to mourn the 962 Westchester residents who have died. "That represents a 3.4 percent fatality rate, which is much higher than we would get from the flu or other diseases that cost us lives."