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Assessing North Salem's Tax Grievance Day

NORTH SALEM, N.Y. – Tuesday was Tax Grievance Day, the deadline for filing a grievance with the tax department if you think your property assessment is too high.

North Salem Tax Assessor Karen Futia expects there will be about the same number of grievances filed this year as there were last year. Futia does not consider Grievance Day a special event. “People come in all year long for informal reviews,” she said. “Sometimes the assessments are lowered and sometimes they’re not.”

“People come in for different reasons. If they’re selling, they come in to see if the assessment can be lowered. People who have just purchased a property come in too.” Futia said. “Other people might be refinancing and need to get a new appraisal. Or, they might have their home equity revoked because there’s not enough value, so they come to see me.”

When you come down to it, Futia said, “the only number that really matters is the total taxable assessments last year at the final assessment roll, compared to the total taxable assessments this year.”

The tax assessor’s primary responsibility is to calculate the value of the town’s individual properties. The information is then passed to the Tax Collector, who determines the appropriate amount of property tax due. The assessor does not levy the taxes nor determine how much they should be.

An assessor’s evaluation can serve as an insurance guideline, but should not be confused with a property’s market value. Although market values have decreased in recent years, especially those of larger homes, the market value is usually higher than the assessor’s value.

For more information on how to determine whether your tax assessment is accurate, go to click here.

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