(According to the [City Project]) While New York City's Property Tax is the city's largest source of revenue, over 180 categories of property tax exemptions cost the city $7.74 billion last year in lost tax revenues. And the number of tax-exempt properties grows uncontrollably each year, as does the amount of lost tax revenue. Currently, just over 40 percent of the total assessed value of the city's real estate is being captured by the property tax, compared to almost 67 percent less than 30 years ago. Apparently the biggest factor is an increase in the number of buildings owned by New York State (and State Funded Authority-s - MTA and others)!

And Madison Square Garden doesn't pay either!

Also: The starkly different headlines reflect the contradictory impulses of the $49.7-billion budget itself. There was the good news of an unexpectedly high $3.3 billion surplus from the current fiscal year, the embarrassment of an equally unexpected actuarial goof that underestimated [FY] 2006 pension costs by more than $850 million, a "grab bag of goodies" (Daily News) that includes both tax relief and service restorations, and, finally, the bad news of fiscal deficits of more than $4.4 billion, $4.2 billion, and $3.7 billion in fiscal years 2007 through 2009, respectively.

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