The real (scary) numbers behind those tax abatements

By Teri Karush Rogers | March 17, 2011 - 7:30AM

If you're thinking of buying an apartment that has a tax abatement in place, you probably want to know what your taxes will be when the abatement wears off. But how? Start by figuring out what the unabated tax amount is today. Many thanks to the hive mind at StreetEasy.com for showing us this excellent trick:

Go to NYC's property information system, click on the "search by address" link and enter the apartment's address and unit number.
On the list of links that appears, open the most recent "Quarterly Statement of Accounts."
Scroll to the bottom to see both the current tax amount and the amount due if no abatement were in place.

What you learn may shock you.

Consider the apartment we selected randomly from StreetEasy's listings: According to the tax statement we pulled for a junior-4 condo for sale at The Brompton at 205 East 85th Street, annual abated taxes are currently $3,234. Without the abatement, taxes on the $1.75 million condo would be $24,221. [Correction/update: Thanks to real estate attorney Dean Roberts for explaining to us that the unabated taxes actually appear on the line "Tax Before Exemptions and Abatements," rather than the one entitled "Tax Before Abatements." That means the current unabated taxes on this condo are $12,838, not $24,221. "The layout is very confusing," allows Roberts, "which is not a surprise."]

That's today's number. After a few intervening years of tax rate hikes and assessed value increases, what will the taxes be when the abatement disappears?

Barring some new legislation or an excessive show of fiscal restraint by the city, your guess is as good as ours: "Since the city is currently going crazy in increasing all the values," notes one commenter, "you never know how high it may go in six years."

(StreetEasy.com; previously)

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Teri Karush Rogers

Founder & Publisher

Founder and publisher Teri Karush Rogers launched Brick Underground in 2009. As a freelance journalist, she had previously covered New York City real estate for The New York Times. Teri has been featured as an expert on New York City residential real estate by The New York Times, New York Daily News, amNew York, NBC Nightly News, The Real Deal, Business Insider, the Huffington Post, and NY1 News, among others. Teri earned a BA in journalism and a law degree from New York University.

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