Tax Benefit or Hush Money?

When residents of newly built Country Pointe townhomes in Plainview received their 2020/21 tax bills, most suffered from tax shock. That shock was transformed into political action and a new law was passed providing an 8 year phase-in of taxes for newly constructed homes (HIEX). The exemption applies to a maximum of $750,000 of a home’s total market value for construction completed by 2023. This law benefited Country Pointe and other newly constructed homes throughout Nassau County. A recent Newsday “exclusive” attributes this new law with a tax shift to pre-existing homes of $2 Billion in value. The article does not provide an estimated tax dollar shift. While there is no doubt that the new exemption shifts taxes away from newly constructed homes, pre-existing homes already benefited from the County’s taxpayer protection plan (TPP) which provided a 5-year phase in starting in 2020/21 – a benefit from which Country Pointe and other new homes were excluded and which had shifted taxes to newly constructed properties. Like most tax incentive programs, the recipients point to the necessity of the program. In this case, both the HIEX and TPP, serve as hush money to keep constituents from complaining about increased taxes.

The Newsday article can be found here: Nassau assessment break shifts $2 billion in value onto other homeowners – Newsday