One Cayuga County town will need to make changes after it did not properly administer select real property tax exemptions.
According to the state Comptroller’s Office, the Assessor did not ensure applicants provided the necessary documentation to grant an exemption or obtain said documentation.
A review of 58 exemptions totalling $2.7 million in the Town of Sempronius found that 32 of them, totalling $1.4 million, lacked the documentation required to verify eligibility and the Assessor’s exemption calculation. The office adds that miscalculated or inappropriately granted exemptions can cause inequality among taxpayers.
The town agreed to the comptroller’s recommendations to “ensure applicants provide supporting documentation before granting exemptions, retain documentation to support eligibility, and periodically verify that those granted exemptions qualify,” and to “review data entered in the Real Property Tax System (RPTS) periodically to ensure accuracy.”
