Colton urges senior citizens to look into tax credits

COLTON - Either the town’s senior citizens are a very wealthy bunch or they are simply missing out on a series of tax credits.

The town has had just five senior citizens apply for the low income credit exemption as part of the state’s School Tax Relief program.

That is a “phenomenally” low number, according to Tina Miller, chair of the town’s assessors.

“I was shocked,” she told the town board during a meeting Wednesday night.

Ms. Miller said even officials in the St. Lawrence County tax office were taken aback by the lack of participants.

“Much, much, much smaller towns have many more people,” she said.

Senior citizen exemptions can affect the town and school taxes as well as STAR. To be eligible, the individuals have to be 65 or older and make a limited income.

While not all discounts are the same, generally for the low income STAR, senior citizens who make under $17,000 are eligible for a discount on their county tax bill and those who make under $13,700 could also see a discount in the town bill, Ms. Miller said.

But so far, only a handful of the town’s residents have applied for the discount.

It may be the town only has five people who qualify, but it is more likely that people just don’t know about the credits, Ms. Miller said.

And it’s not just the senior citizens who may be missing out on the tax breaks. There are a number of exemptions, including those for volunteer firefighters and emergency medical technicians, as well as for people with disabilities, that remain largely untapped in Colton, she said.

That includes the Basic STAR program. Basic STAR has no age limit and is available to home owners whose total income is less than $500,000. Those discounts are on a sliding scale according to income levels, she said. The more an individual makes the less of a discount they will see.

But in some cases, towns and school districts have granted up to a 50 percent tax exemption to people who qualify.

“No one’s taking advantage of it,” Ms. Miller said. “Unfortunately it’s because no one knows.”

In an effort to help educate the taxpayers, Ms. Miller will host a pair of meetings in the town hall, tentatively scheduled from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. Feb. 22, and Feb. 25. Interested participants should bring a calculator and income documents.

“Hopefully we can get a few more people going and get a few more discounts,” she said.

Tax credit applications must be completed by March 1.