Policy Brief: NYC’s Looming Task of Property Tax Reform
There are people who deny, in the face of mounting scientific evidence, that climate change is something society must address. There are folks who deny any connection between mass-casualty gun attacks and the laxity of most states’ gun laws.
Almost no one, however, denies that New York City’s property tax system is profoundly flawed.
That consensus has not made it any easier to change the system, though. Council Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito convened a commission to explore ways to do so in early 2014, but it was dead by early 2016.
Since then, however, the pressure to act has mounted. A broad coalition of real-estate groups and advocacy organizations banded together this summer to sue over the racial impact of property-tax unfairness. . .