To tell the truth

July 26, 2020

Kingston, NY – Anyone watch “To Tell The Truth?” You know, the television show where two people lie and one tells the truth, and the panel tries to pick the straight shooter?

Here’s YOUR chance to be a panelist and guess who’s fibbing about whether the $30 million PILOT tax gift requested by the Kingstonian developers will eventually come out of YOUR pocket.

CONTESTANT NUMBER ONE: The mayor and developers, who say their air-conditioned garage is “… at no cost to City taxpayers.”

CONTESTANT NUMBER TWO: Common Council Majority Leader Rennie Scott-Childress, who told the Daily Freeman he keeps hearing that a PILOT somehow involves taxpayers giving money to a developer. “That’s not how it works,” Scott-Childress said.

CONTESTANT NUMBER THREE: New York State Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli: “Since local government real property taxes are levied only on taxable property, the more tax-exempt property there is in a jurisdiction, the greater the tax rate generally is on the owners of taxable property. In turn, high tax rates put pressure on officials to reduce costs (often along with needed services)….” — From the Office of the State Comptroller Research Brief on property tax exemptions.

See Fun With Taxes for an explanation of how it’s done.