More than 11,000 property owners in the Town of North Hempstead do not have to worry about the modest tax increase in the proposed 2016 budget.
About 16.5 percent, or $8.5 billion worth, of the town’s $51.3 billion in assessed land is exempt from property taxes under the state tax code, according to county property assessment data that appears in the town’s 2016 budget.
The exemptions in the proposed town budget apply to corporate and governmental owners, such as hospitals, churches and fire departments, as well as individuals such as veterans, low-income seniors and first responders.
“It allows people who are most deserving to stay in their homes and to afford to pay their property taxes,” said Charles Berman, North Hempstead’s receiver of taxes.
School districts get the largest portion of the exemptions. They own 110 of the town’s 11,656 tax-exempt properties, accounting for 3.56 percent or more than $1.8 billion worth of the town’s land.
Three hundred religious organizations pay no taxes on the 2.3 percent of the town’s property, worth nearly 1.2 billion, that they collectively own.
Certain North Hempstead residents, such as veterans, senior citizens, firefighters and people with disabilities, also get tax breaks.
Veterans claimed seven different exemptions worth more than $791 million together.
Corporate entities such as school districts and churches get almost wholesale tax breaks, but do pay certain fees to some special districts.
Individual exemptions, on the other hand, are more piecemeal.
Veterans who served in a combat zone, for example, can get up to a 25-percent property tax discount.
Senior citizens over age 65 and people with disabilities can get tax breaks of up to 50 percent on property they own.
The exemptions do not impact the town’s revenue, Berman said, but do affect the tax rates for non-exempt residents.
The county’s tax rate formula uses the total amount of taxable property as a denominator, meaning the less land that shows up on the town’s tax rolls, the higher the tax rate will be.
Berman said he was not sure how much lower the tax rates would be if the exemptions didn’t exist, but he said they do more good than harm.
“These exemptions are all there for a reason,” he said. “I don’t think that there’s anybody who thinks that churches and synagogues and mosques should be taxed.”
Overall, the county does the best it can to make sure only people who legally qualify for exemptions get them, Berman said.
“Obviously you can’t have people getting exemptions who aren’t entitled to them, because that costs everybody money,” he said.
Berman said other kinds of tax breaks further decrease the amount of property the town can tax.
The biggest contributors are payment-in-lieu-of-taxes agreements, also known as PILOTs, awarded by the Nassau County Industrial Development Agency.
Most PILOT agreements for North Hempstead properties, Berman said, go to “big, profitable companies” that bring in tens of millions of dollars and get millions more in property tax breaks.
