Senate Bill S2896

                                 
BILL NUMBER: S2896

SPONSOR: COMRIE
 
TITLE OF BILL:

An act to amend the real property tax law, in relation to extending
certain filing deadlines for the industrial and commercial abatement
program

 
PURPOSE OR GENERAL IDEA OF BILL:

To allow businesses that were not able to comply with the original
Industrial and Commercial Abatement Program (ICAP) filing deadline--due
to additional procedural steps mandated by Local Law 67 of 2008--the
opportunity to re-file with the NYC Department of Finance for said bene-
fits.

 
SUMMARY OF PROVISIONS:

Section 1 enumerates a condition upon which ICAP benefits may be granted
to applicants who were otherwise qualified in every way and missed the
final application filing date owing to additional requirements imposed
              

by Local Law 67 of 2008 that created delay.

 
JUSTIFICATION:

The Industrial and Commercial Abatement Program (ICAP) is a tax abate-
ment in a city with more than one million persons. New York City has
used this enabling statute to adopt a local law and has a successful
1CAP abatement program. A complex formula credits businesses property
tax bills during the years construction is done to improve their proper-
ty. The purpose of this tax abatement was to incentivize businesses to
expand. The program has been very popular and the program has met with
success.

However, due to the original program structure, and dual filing dead-
lines (including a preliminary application and final application) many
otherwise eligible entities were not able to receive benefits because
intervening governmental actions (such as stop-work orders; permitting
issues and additional mandates) caused them to be unable to file the
final application in a timely manner, meaning one year after the prelim-
inary application. Chapter 397 of the Laws of 2017 partially addressed
these challenges by granting the NYC Department of Finance the
discretion to investigate the circumstances of late filings and award
benefits in cases that merit it, prospectively.  However, we still have
a universe of businesses that were denied benefits under the old model
where there is clear evidence that a governmental mandate-such as Local
Law 67/2006 interfered with the ability to make a timely final 'applica-
tion. This bill creates a one-time, three-month window for this specific
subset of businesses to reapply for benefits that they were., otherwise
eligible for in every other way.

 
PRIOR LEGISLATIVE HISTORY:

2022: S5810 2018:

S 837 COMRIE Same as A 10533

 
FISCAL IMPLICATIONS FOR STATE AND LOCAL GOVERNMENTS:
To be determined.

 
EFFECTIVE DATE:
Immediately.