Fighting a NYC property tax bill starts with knowing which fight it is
The assessment, the tax class, the exemptions and the description on your notice are four separate arguments. They go to two different agencies, on two different calendars, and the wrong one filed on time is worth less than the right one filed at all.
Every January the Department of Finance mails a Notice of Property Value. It is not a bill and nothing is due on it, which is exactly why it gets set aside. It is also the only warning you get before the numbers behind next year's tax bill harden, and every deadline for arguing with them runs from it.
Which argument are you actually making?
| What is wrong? | Who decides it? | The filing |
|---|---|---|
| The assessed value is too high | New York City Tax Commission | An Application for Correction on TC101, TC108 or TC109 |
| The tax class is wrong | New York City Tax Commission | Form TC106, carrying every valuation claim with it |
| An exemption is missing, denied, reduced or removed | New York City Tax Commission | Form TC106, or a personal exemption form |
| The description of the property is wrong | Department of Finance | A Request for Review, or a Request to Update |
What can each one actually change?
- The Tax Commission is an independent agency, created to give owners a review of the assessed value, the tax class and the exemption status that Finance determined. Its own forms page describes it as authorised to correct the tax class, assessed value, or exemption of your property.
- The Department of Finance sets the market value in the first place, and it is the only one that corrects the description printed on the notice: square footage, land area, the number of residential and non-residential units, the number of floors.
- Neither one is where a tax rate is argued. The rate is applied after the assessed value and the exemptions are settled, which is why the assessment is the part worth fighting.
The dates that end the argument
March 15 for tax class 1, March 1 for tax classes 2, 3 and 4. The Tax Commission has to receive the application by then, a postmark is not a filing, and its own page says in capitals that the deadlines cannot be extended. Finance's Request for Review runs on a different pair of dates entirely. The whole calendar, including the two exceptions that run shorter than any of them, is on the deadlines page.
Where does your own case start?
Start with the notice itself if it is still sitting unopened. Go to the Tax Commission application when the number is the problem, the Request for Review when the record is, and the tax class page when the property is being taxed as something it is not.
If the letter in your hand is a non-primary residence surcharge notice rather than a Notice of Property Value, that is a different program on a different clock, and MGNY's pied-a-terre tax page sets out who is exempt, the response deadline and the value challenge. If it turns out not to be an argument at all but a benefit you have to apply for, the fight or filing page says which is which. MGNY Consulting represents 2,500+ properties in annual appeals filed at the Tax Commission and the Department of Finance: 212-343-1111.