Tax cappers launch competing Web sites
The fight over a property tax cap is heating up.
Over the weekend, a pro-cap group launched taxcapnow.org, which Gov. David Paterson praised on Monday. Paterson wants to cap tax growth at 4 percent annually or 120 percent of the consumer price index, whichever is lower. Also in favor, according to the new Web site, is the Business Council of New York State, smaller business organizations and taxpayer activist groups. Individuals continued to add their names to the list throughout the day.
The Working Families Party, in response, put up a site, taxcutnow.org, where residents can calculate what they would save with a so-called circuit-breaker plan. A circuit-breaker would limit a household's property taxes based on income -- for example, to no more than 6 percent of earnings.
The WFP says that a circuit-breaker would give homeowners an actual cut in property taxes, as opposed to Paterson's plan, which only limits tax growth. However, the WFP's argument is disingenuous.
The real issue behind soaring property taxes is school spending, which in New York has grown 7.9 percent annually for the past six years, surpassing all other states in the nation.
A circuit-breaker would help individual taxpayers who are having trouble paying their bills, but it would provide no incentive for schools to cut costs. Newsday supports a circuit-breaker, but only in combination with a tax cap.
For the past three years on Long Island (2005 to 2007), school districts' proposed increases in property taxes were 7.9 percent, 6.2 percent and 4.7 percent. So a 4 percent cap would provide real savings over the long run.
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