A look at Pine Plains: Do higher property assessments mean higher taxes?

PINE PLAINS— It’s a murky issue: how a rise in property assessments may or may not impact taxes. After all, one’s tax bill is based on the assessed value of one’s home. And that’s exactly why Pine Plains residents are trying to decode, after receiving letters in the mail from the Assessors’ Office, the result of their assessments being on the rise.

“Assessed values go up — that means how many dollars per thousand the house is worth,” said Pine Plains Assessor Rich Diaz, one of three in the office. “We have no effect at all on what taxes will be. That is completely in the budget, and [town Supervisor] Darrah [Cloud] takes care of the budget. We take care of the value per house, and Darrah takes care of the budget.”

Cloud, for her part, tried to assure town residents that “just because the market value on your house went up does not therefore mean your taxes will go up,” according to one of her “Dear Pine Plains” newsletters.

She suggested residents who are concerned about their taxes talk to the assessors.

“Talk to the assessor,” Cloud said. “Basically, we can’t tax extra if that makes sense. We can only tax for what we need, and what we set in the budget. So as some properties come up, others go down, and it kind of evens back out in terms of what amount of money we need. That’s a very simplistic way of saying it.”

According to www.investopedia.com, “property taxes pay for things like public schools, community colleges, libraries, local government employees’ salaries, parks and recreation, sanitation, sewer, police and fire protection, roads and other local needs such as mosquito control. Each of these items can have its own percentage rate that is multiplied by the assessed value of your property to determine a portion of your bill. The taxes you owe for each item are totaled to determine your final property tax bill.”

“They are connected,” said Diaz about the relationship between property assessments and property taxes. “We will not know taxes until the town puts out how much the taxes will be. I can tell you the value of a house based on previous sales in the last year, and that causes the ones sold that went up in value to increase, and that’s basically it. People are taxed on the actual value of their property.”

Trying to explain further, Cloud said this:

“So your assessment could go up $10,000, but you might not even feel the tax on that because other people’s [assessments are] going up much further, because maybe they were not brought up to 100% market value, or are not on the rolls,” she said. “There are a million reasons why this could happen, so some people could see a lowering of taxes and some could see a raising.”

The supervisor went on to explain that as a homeowner with a ranch house, her property assessment rose.

“Ranch houses are in right now, so mine went up,” said Cloud. “Two or three years ago they went way down because nobody was buying ranches.”

The town of Pine Plains is at 100% market value, which Cloud said is common for most towns in the Harlem Valley. The differences are reflected in different ways, like in the popularity of ranch — or log — houses, she said.

“People who live in log houses, for some reason, are more valuable,” she said. “Those went up. It’s quirky. It’s based on market value, because we’re at 100%. So if my house is worth $150,000 it’s assessed at $150,000. When I  first came up here we were assessed at a percentage of market value, it might have been 75%, at which case it was a different figure.”

According to Investopedia, “If property tax bills are based on current real estate values in your area, you can expect differences in your bill from year to year.”

“There’s no way of knowing [if taxes will rise] until they factor in the rest of the tax rate,” said Diaz. “And they pay taxes to a lot of various places. The town’s tax rate is not established yet.”

Lastly, “tax authorities can increase one’s tax bill by increasing the assessed value of one’s property and/or by increasing the tax rate. Likewise, they can lower one’s bill by decreasing the assessed value of one’s property and/or by decreasing the tax rate,” explained Investopedia.

As a side note, Diaz mentioned that Tuesday, May 28 (after this paper went to press), was Grievance Day in Pine Plains. Grievance Day gives property owners a platform to appeal their property assessments before the Board of Assessment Review, in hopes of a change of their assessment.

To contact the Pine Plains Assessors’ Office, call 518-398-7155, ext. 7, or email assessors@pineplains-ny.gov.