Mangano panel seeks 'Taxpayer Bill of Rights'

County Executive Edward Mangano's Assessment Reform Team, in a new report focusing on residential property tax assessments, criticizes Nassau's "misplaced aggressive anti-taxpayer tactics" and calls for a "Taxpayer Bill of Rights" to make the process more transparent.

"You just can't come up with numbers and say that's the assessment. You have to say how you came up with it," said Bob Orosz, a member of the volunteer team.

Homeowners have continually complained that the county does not explain how it calculates houses' assessments. "I'm paying for this system," said Orosz, who has challenged his own assessment. "For them to tell me I can't have the information they have is ludicrous."

The report complains that county assessors arguing in court against tax protests "routinely employ technical challenges which tend to discriminate against senior citizens" by requiring deeds, drivers' licenses, phone bills and other documents associated with properties held in trust or life estates.

It also contends that the county provides comparables with values much higher than the home being challenged, indicating the county is underassessing residential properties to make it much less likely that homeowners can win legitimate reductions. One tax challenge firm, the report said, found that in more than 1,100 court cases Nassau presented comparables averaging 16 percent higher than the protested property.

The report, delivered to Mangano on Friday, completes a review of the county's assessment system that the county executive requested in January. Neither Mangano nor a spokesman could be reached for comment Friday.

Like its companion report on commercial assessments, also delivered to Mangano, the residential review makes nine recommendations to "relieve the burden faced by inaccurately assessed taxpayers."

However, backup for many of the residential recommendations was not included. "We will elaborate," Orosz said. "That's coming soon."

Mark Miller, an associate of ART member Shalom Maidenbaum, said the team will provide an appendix including appropriate documents and materials.

Unlike commercial assessments, which "need a complete overhaul," Miller said the residential system could work if resources were redirected to allow the Assessment Review Commission, which hears protests, to resolve challenges before tax bills are generated.

Currently the county pays $100 million in property tax refunds every year because of erroneous assessments. More than 80 percent of those refunds result from commercial assessment mistakes, with residential mistakes accounting for the remainder.