Read about the crooked city tax laws

When the tax fattened High Falls business owners make a killing from defaulting on govt. guaranteed loans and refuse to pay property taxes... why not make small charity groups pay for it?

 

Narrative for Tax Assessment Appeal re: 30

 Mark Street

On behalf of Friends Helping Friends, I believe that the City of Rochester's Board of Assessment Review's decision to deny Friends Helping Friends' its tax exemption for 30 Mark Street to be unlawful and capricious. The NYS Constitution requires exemption from taxation of: [R]eal or personal property used exclusively for religious, educational or charitable purposes as defined by law and owned by any corporation or association organized or conducted exclusively for one or more of such purposes and non operating for profit.

Real Property Tax Law 420a provides for mandatory exemption. This section states, in part, that: Real property owned by a corporation or association organized or conducted exclusively for religious, charitable, hospital, educational or moral or mental improvement of men, women or children purposes, or for two or more such purposes, and used exclusively for carrying out thereupon one or more of such purposes either by the owning corporation or association or by another such corporation or association as hereinafter provided shall be exempt from taxation as provided in this section.

As I understand it, Susan Houser, the City of Rochester's legal counsel, petitioned for the denial of FHF's tax exemption on the grounds that FHF's proposed housing program did not have adequate case management support; case management support, in Ms. Houser's opinion, is what defines a charitable shelter program. However, Friends Helping Friends never submitted any plans for its housing program at 30 Mark Street to the City of Rochester. For all Ms. Houser knows, FHF could be applying for HUD SuperNOFA funding for extensive case management for 30 Mark Street; Ms. Houser has no idea exactly what FHF has in mind for 30 Mark Street, but made an arbitrary and capricious assumption. As you know, 30 Mark Street is still awaiting its Certificate of Occupancy and the shelter program is not currently operating; FHF has not been able to install the needed furnace unit due to the financial burden of the City of Rochester's ongoing unconstitutional levying of taxes against FHF. The City of Rochester has ruled that buildings in renovation still qualify for tax exemptions; the City of Rochester granted FHF a tax exemption for 226 Hudson Avenue, a building in the renovation process with a projected charitable use, as inspected by City of Rochester employee Domenic Bozzelli.

Furthermore, Ms. Houser's opinion of what defines a tax exempt shelter program is arbitrary and capricious. Although Ms. Houser claimed that her distinction distinguished a for-profit rental unit from a nonprofit shelter program, Ms. Houser's true rationale for the distinction focuses on victimizing grassroots nonprofits. Ms. Houser knows that smaller charity groups lack the administrative and legal resources to “fight City Hall” and are much easier to force to pay unconstitutional taxes than larger nonprofit entities. Thus, Ms. Houser fabricates a groundless and transparent excuse on why grassroots nonprofits would pay taxes and larger nonprofits wouldn't pay taxes; larger, better funded nonprofits would be more likely to have case management, while underfunded grassroots programs tend to lack the money to provide formal case management services. I call Ms. Houser's rationale “transparent” and “groundless,” because neither the House of Mercy or St. Joseph's House of Hospitality (both of which are exempt from City of Rochester property taxes) run emergency/transitional shelter programs without formal case management. How can these two entities be tax exempt when Ms. Houser asserted that formal case management is a requirement for a tax exemption? Furthermore, Thomas Huonker asserted that the original denial for 2006 was on the ground that housing the homeless was not a part of FHF's mission (as defined in FHF's articles of incorporation) to provide groceries to working-poor people. Yet the City of Rochester granted FHF a tax exemption for a youth development program at 226 Hudson Avenue, an activity that was not covered in FHF's articles of incorporation.

The City of Rochester's denial of FHF's tax exemption for 30 Mark Street has been entirely and repeatedly capricious and arbitrary. Maybe if the City of Rochester stopped letting SBA loan recipients, well-connected business people and other powerful and affluent property owners cheat their way out of paying their taxes (Mr. Bruno Coccia of 367 Lyell Avenue – see narrative for previous complaint), the City wouldn't have to unconstitutionally levy taxes onto small, grassroots charity groups. You people ought to be ashamed of yourselves.