11/16/2020 Assessment Community Weekly
STAR IVP tool and STAR reports are available again
Thank you for your patience as we applied some technology updates this morning.
Updates to veterans exemption forms and webpages
In 2019, the Governor signed into law the Restoration of Honor Act. The act authorizes the New York State Division of Veterans’ Services (DVS) to restore access to state veterans benefits to veterans who have an Other-Than-Honorable Discharge or a General Under Honorable Conditions Discharge due to certain reasons specified in the law.
As a result, if an applicant for the alternative and cold war veterans exemptions received a letter from DVS stating that the veteran meets the character of discharge criteria for all of the benefits and services listed in the Restoration of Honor Act, the applicant would submit a copy of that letter with their application. The applicant is not required to provide documentation of having been discharged or released under honorable conditions.
To reflect this change, we have updated the Alternative Veterans Exemption Assessor Guide, associated webpages, and the following forms and instructions:
We are in the process of updating the handout, Veterans’ Exemption Questions & Answers. We will let you know when that is available.
How to enter homeowners without Social Security numbers (SSNs) into the IVP Tool
If you receive Form RP-425-IVP from a homeowner who does not have an SSN or taxpayer identification number, enter a fake SSN (such as 111-11-1112) into the IVP tool. If there is a resident spouse or additional owners, enter 222-22-2223, 333-33-3334, and so forth. If we need additional information from the property owner(s), we will contact them by mail.
Note: The system will not allow you to repeat any one single digit as the entire SSN.
Reminder: Please complete our RPSV4 letters survey
If you haven’t done so already, please take our very brief survey regarding some of the letters in RPSV4. Your participation will assist our process of working with Tyler Technologies to incorporate the forms and letters currently offered in RPSV4 into the Assessment Community Enterprise System (ACES).
The survey will be available until midnight Tuesday, November 17.
If you have questions about the survey, email geoffrey.gloak@tax.ny.gov.
Note: The forms currently in RPSV4 (such as RP-467, RP-467-Rnw, RP-425-E, RP-425-B and several others) are also being incorporated into ACES. They are not included in this survey.
And the answer is…
Last week we offered this multiple-choice question regarding county equalization rates:
The state equalization rates that are determined for counties pursuant to RPTL §1214 are used to (select all that apply):
A. apportion county taxes;
B. apportion village taxes when a village crosses over a county line;
C. determine the county’s full value for aid purposes;
D. all of the above; or
E. none of the above.
If you chose C, you’re correct! RPTL §1214 requires ORPTS to establish state equalization rates for counties. Section 54 of the State Finance Law refers to using such a rate in the calculation of the county’s state aid for support of local government.
Next week’s quiz goes international. Stay tuned!
New judicial case
We’ve added Matter of Board of Mgrs. of the Liberty View Condominium v New York City Dept. of Fin. to Judicial cases.