Property taxes

Proposals to cap property taxes have stalled in the New York state Legislature, but other states are enacting curbs on soaring property taxes.

A special commission has recommended that New York's property tax increase be limited to 4 percent a year or 120 percent of inflation, whichever is less. Provisions were incorporated to allow tax hikes to exceed that level if 55 percent of the school district voters agree or 60 percent of the voters approve if a district receives more than a 5 percent increase in state aid.

Legislative leaders have balked at the proposal even though 70 percent of New Yorkers support the idea, which has the backing of Gov. David A. Paterson. The state's highest-in-the-nation property taxes are 79 percent above the national average.

Alternative proposals have been floated in the Senate and Assembly, but the Legislature ended its session without acting on any of them. Property taxes are being limited in other states, among them Florida and Indiana, which enacted legislation this year.

The Indiana measure seeks to reduce taxes by an average of 30 percent, according to a Wall Street Journal report. Beginning in 2010, it will cap taxes at 1 percent of assessed value.

Florida voters expanded the reach of their tax limits. For residents who live in their houses for more than six months of the year, increases in the assessed value of their homes are limited to 3 percent a year, but that was restricted to the current residence. Floridians this year approved measures allowing them to transfer some of the built-up tax savings to their new property when they move.

But often such restrictions are less a tax cut than a tax shift. Another measure to further roll back Florida's property taxes is on the November ballot, but it would come with an increase in the state's 6 percent sales tax. Idaho, South Carolina and Texas have also enacted tax cuts that result in higher taxes elsewhere, often the sales tax.

The Indiana tax cut requires the state to take over the local costs of some programs, which will be paid for by a one percentage point hike in the sales tax, to 7 percent.

It becomes a matter of who pays. Addressing taxes is just one part of the equation; governments have to restrain spending, too, to keep tax caps from merely shifting the burden someplace else.