Tax Outcry Leads To Mayoral Promises

New Haven’s tax office will visit more small businesses and putative not-for-profits before raising their tax assessments, and taxpayers who feel unfairly charged will have a more professional appeals board to go to, Mayor John DeStefano promised Monday afternoon.

DeStefano made those and other promises at a City Hall press conference held hours before another scheduled aldermanic hearing over taxpayer complaints this season about allegedly incompetent, arrogant, dishonest, and rude treatment. (Visit the Independent after 6:30 p.m. for Thomas MacMillan’s live blog of that hearing.)

The mayor ordered top tax officials to investigate complaints made at public hearings and in a series of newspaper articles, ranging from arbitrarily inflated $5,000 assessments of artist studios and lost paperwork in the assessors office, from botched seniors’ tax bills and rising assessments on on old used cars to a complete collapse of any transparent or informed conduct by the Board of Assessment Appeals.

Twelve aldermen have in response called for the head of Assessor Bill O’Brien.

DeStefano reported back at Monday’s press conference on each category of complaint. In some cases the city screwed up and will do better, he said; in others, it needs to get better information out about how it didn’t screw up.

The mayor offered the fewest specifics, but the clearest sense of the ​“need to do better,” in discussing the conduct of the Board of Assessment Appeals, where citizens theoretically can turn for redress for alleged tax mistakes. According to reporting by the Advocate’s Betsy Yagla, only one of the board’s three members attends meetings, and that person displays little if any knowledge of applicable laws; few if any public meetings take place; few if any public notes are kept of reasons for decisions; and appeals of patently obvious mistakes (like fining Bru Cafe for failing to submit paper work required of not-for-profit businesses — when it’s a for-profit coffee shop) are summarily denied without explanation.

On Monday DeStefano promised to appoint new members to the board. He also promised to ​“support” the board with staff help from the controller’s office. He promised to give the board members ​“proper training.” And he took personal responsibility, as the person who appoints the board, for not staying more on top of the situation.

He said the tax office made two kinds of mistakes in sending out bills to 398 homeowners over 70 who qualify for a tax freeze program (by earning less than $53,000 and living in their homes for at least 10 years). He said 374 of them were accidentally underbilled last year; that’s why they were surprised by higher bills this year. The other 24 were incorrectly charged too much this year because of an error that’s since been rectified. The city will audit the tax credit program annually, he said. And it has scheduled three community meetings to explain it better to seniors: at the King Robinson School on Aug. 10 (primary election day) at 2 p.m.; at Edgewood School on Aug. 11 at 11 a.m.; and at Nathan Hale School Aug. 12 at 2 p.m.

As for all those small businesses, including artists, that received blanket $5,000 assessments: Half of them failed to file forms declaring how much property they own, DeStefano said. They’re supposed to; otherwise the city assigns a value. In all cases, though, the city should be making more in-person inspections of personal property rather than relying so much of broad-brush industry standard estimates, DeStefano acknowledged. So it will make more inspections. In the meantime, it will visit the businesses of people who complained about this year’s bill and suspend their bills in the meantime.

The city will also do similar field reviews of 13 businesses which have appealed losing their tax-exempt status.

In response to complaints of rudeness by assessor and tax collector office staffs, the city will add audio to its in-office video recording and start recording phone calls from the public, DeStefano said. And the city will launch a hotline for customer complaints — with ​“guaranteed timely human response.”

It’s true that people with used cars saw their taxes go up this year, the mayor reported — and there’s nothing the city can do about that: State government requires cities to use the National Automobile Dealers Association (NADA) guide in assessing cars’ value. And used cars have gone up in value because fewer people are buying new cars, DeStefano said.

DeStefano signaled little inclination to heed calls to oust Assessor O’Brien. Two of the cases involving confirmed problems — the assessment appeals board and the senior tax errors — have nothing to do with O’Brien, he said; in fact, O’Brien discovered the senior tax errors, which occurred before he assumed the office. He said he and O’Brien came up with the audio monitoring and field audit solutions after discussing the rudeness and arbitrary-assessment and tax-exemption complaints.

Instead, DeStefano put the complaints in the context of what he called a national trend toward tax ​“tension” as the ​“we reconcile the things we want with the things we’re willing to pay for” amid the worst recession since the Great Depression. He appealed for people to ​“have disagreements without being disagreeable” at a time when groups like the Tea Party have turned up and personalized anti-government rhetoric. He expects to hear ongoing invective about ​“Obama Socialism” and ​“DeStefano tax hikes,” the mayor said. He said he listened to the complaints New Haveners had about the city’s tax system, and found plenty of room for improvement.