New-York tribune., 1918-09-23
Exempt Property
Going ON Tax Lists
To Obviate Evasion
Churches and Schools Must
Now Declare Intention 10
improve Holdings
Higher Schedule Seen
President Cantor Predicts In
creased Levy With Little
Change in Assessed Valuations

Tho Department. Of Taxes aud AS
,essueuts. II was learned, has author-
3xed the deputies in charge Of the var!-
Gus assessing districts 60 place on tho
rolls hundreds Of parcels owned by re-
llsious and educational Institutions.
which parcels hitherto have boon on
the exempt list, This action is ex-
pected to arouse serious protest on thu
rart Of tho owners and to result in
legal action.
An interesting feature OF the case is
that the Tax Department does not ex-
pect to hold on the rolls any Of the
parcels so to be assessed, but Is using
this means of compelling the owners 20
show by affidavit their intentions with
reference to the Improvement OF unim-
proved land now exempt because owned
by church organizations.
"One case" said head of one Of the
divisions III the Tax Department, "is
the Mount Loretto Academy property
on Staten ISLAND. The owners have
about seven hundred acres there, and
much of it IS unimproved. We have
one case where for twenty-seven years
church society has held large acre
sge on the plea that they plan to erect
school buildings on it, and on affidavit
Of the owners that such was their in
tention the city exempted the land
They have not improved the property
in all that time. The land has greatly
increased in value.
Want to Learn Intentions
"ln another instance the owners have
held q parcel unimproved for twenty
FIVE years. on the same sort Of affidavit
What we propose to DO is to compel the
owners of such holdings to come for
ward and show what they intend to do
with these considerable holdings.
There are hundreds Of such hold
ings and all exempted under the law
By putting them on the rolls as ordi-
nary real estate and taxable we shall be
aole to obtain an entire new set of aft :
cavlts. and in the event of the owners
not being able to satisfy us that they
are able 70 improve their properties as
they had Intended to DO we can tax
them as ordinary real estate"
President Cantor Of the Tax Depart
nent said that while the assessing dep
uties had been able to increase as
Sessed valuations on much waterfront
property, real estate as whole had not
shown evidence of enhancement, and
that valuations, therefore, remained
stationary.
Law Exempts Many
We have largely increased the per
soNal property assessments" said Pres
ldent Cantor, but putting new names
on the personal rolls does not neces-
sarly mean that we shall be able to
hold many OF them for considerable
sums. The law grants many Offsets for
oe5ts, and besides, many kinds of per
Sonal property, such as shares of cor
porations. bonds of the Federal and
state governments and of cities of the
state, are al exempt under the law. So
are savings banks deposits and house
hold goods. unless the owner has above
$1,000 worth.
The bulk of the burden. as usual,
tails on real estate, and with an in
creased city budget there, of course.
viii be IN increased tax rate We shall
douotless be able to increase the as
sessed valuations OF special franchises
Of The public utility corporations, but
those assessed valuations are fixed in
the, first instance by the state board
and turned over to us. Speaking in
general terms, no large increase in real
sstate assessed valuations may be
looked for, as there has been little
building and little activity in real es-
tate