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The Lansing Town Board passed a law Wednesday that will raise the income caps for senior and disabled property tax exemptions.  This brings the exemptions to the highest income level allowed by New York State law.  With the March 1 deadline looming for eligible seniors and disabled individuals, Tompkins County Director of Assessment Jay Franklin says there is still time for people who will turn 65 in the current calendar year (or older) to get their applications in.

"Call us in February so we can help you," Franklin said.  "We take faxes, emails... we even started taking text messages last year.  Everybody has a phone with a camera that can take a picture of their application and send it out to us."

The new law raises the caps at each eligibility level by about $1,000.  Seniors and disabled people with incomes of up to $29,000 qualify for a 50% reduction of their assessed property value.  The previous income level was $28,000.  The exemption applies to ten income levels, with the highest income of $37,400 qualifying for a 5% exemption.

"Based upon the income that you specify, the sliding scale is then set," Franklin said.  "Before you tonight is to increase that limit to $29,000, then pretty much for the next thousand dollars of every income.  If you have income under $29,000 you receive a 50% exemption.  Between roughly $29 and $30 it's a 45% exemption."

"There are a lot of exemptions, not just the two that we are here to talk about tonight," Franklin told the Board.  "For the senior and low income/disability exemption, only towns, cities, villages, the County and school districts can adopt it.  Fire districts, ambulance districts, lighting districts... do not have that option.  They can use the agricultural ceiling value to use for fire district purposes.  The Lansing Fire District does do that, so there is some benefit that they can provide."

Communities in Tompkins County allow about a dozen different kinds of exemptions, including breaks for veterans, property owners who install solar or wind energy systems, who have school-aged children, own historic property, or have an auxiliary dwelling unit for a parent or grandparent 62 years of age or older.  Franklin has posted a chart showing which exemptions are allowed by each Tompkins County community on the Assessment Office Web site.

The Village of Lansing had already raised the income cap to the highest amount allowed.  The Town's action brings it on a par with the Villages of Lansing and Groton, the City of Ithaca, and the Towns of Dryden and Ulysses.  The other Tompkins County communities all offer an exemption to some level of income.

Franklin's department makes it easy for seniors and other eligible people to apply.  The application is posted online, and is accepted along with proof of income (the first two pages of your federal tax return).

"Income is loosely defined as adjusted gross income minus any taxable IRA distributions plus the full amount of Social Security," Franklin explained.  "There are many other asterisks, and exceptions and omissions, so if anybody has any doubt I would rather have them apply to our office for us to deny them, rather than to say you could have been eligible for this exemption."

If that or anything else is confusing, Franklin says apply anyway.  If you don't qualify the application will be denied, but you don't get these exemptions at all unless you apply for them.  Eligibility is determined each year, but you can provide verification of your income in a variety of ways, including the STAR Income Verification Program, which authorizes  the New York State Department of Taxation and Finance to verify it automatically each year instead of submitting your tax returns to the County Assessment Office.

"Regardless of where people's income is, we're going to grant them the highest exemptions," he said.  "We record their income, even up to the enhanced STAR exemption, which is $84,550."

Franklin also noted that these exemptions have minimal impact on the rest of the tax base that must make up for the exemptions.

"The analysis I ran based on the 2015 assessment roll you have about 163 recipients of the senior exemption right now, exempting about $929 million," he said.  "Eight recipients of the disability exemption allow $300,000.  If you had increased this last year you would have increased the number of senior recipients by 29 to 192.  Four more disability exemptions, a total decrease of about 1.95 million in the tax base, which would have resulted in a .002375 increase in the tax rate.  For the average house of $180,000 it is a 43 cent increase in their town taxes for the year."

The Town Board voted 4-0 (Andra Benson was absent) to pass the new law.

"Sometimes we forget these people," said Supervisor Ed LaVigne.  "This is a way to remind everyone that they're still there and they're very important to us as everyone is."

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