Error delays Suffolk gas-tax break

Two days after Suffolk County legislators touted a new law capping sales taxes on gasoline over $3 per gallon, lawmakers discovered that the law never took effect.

That's because no one filed the measure with state tax officials in Albany, said presiding officer William Lindsay (D-Holbrook) in disclosing what he termed "a technical error" in the legislation.

The County Legislature, he said, will pass a corrected version of the bill at a special meeting already planned for Thursday.

Nonetheless, the delay could cost county taxpayers about $1 million in savings. Officials say the new version cannot take effect until June 1 because the state Department of Taxation and Finance needs time to develop new tax tables and circulate them to gasoline retailers.

Under the law, which was to be effective Tuesday, anyone who bought gasoline in Suffolk would pay county sales tax only on the first $3 of every gallon. Pumps around the county were to be recalibrated to not charge the 4.25 percent county tax on any amount above that, as prices edge toward $4 a gallon.

"I'm disappointed," said Legis. Thomas Muratore (R-Ronkonkoma). "It was my first real piece of legislation to help the taxpayers."

Stephen Hernandez, who was buying gas Wednesday at a service station on Veterans Highway in Smithtown, shared the sentiment.

"I drive 20 miles a day going to school," said Hernandez, a St. Anthony's High School senior from Central Islip. "I drive less on the weekends to make it up."

Muratore said the error came to light Tuesday when his office was contacted by the county comptroller's office Tuesday, which had been contacted by state tax officials after reading a newspaper story about the new gas tax cap. "They [state officials] said 'we have no record of this,' " Muratore said.

Backers touted the legislation for preventing government from unduly benefiting from a sales tax windfall at a time of escalating gasoline prices.

Lindsay said that the original legislation failed to include routine language directing the measure be filed with the Department of Taxation and Finance. Because the provision was missing, the legislative clerk's office did not send the final legislation to the state.

"There's enough blame to go around," said Lindsay, noting that no one - legislative counsel who drafted the bill, the sponsor, lawmakers who voted on it or the county executive who signed it - ever picked up on the error.

County Executive Steve Levy's office will supply a certificate of necessity to allow a new vote on the gas cap, so that the measure does not have to go through legislative committee.