Tax Correction Agency


Speak with a professional property tax
grievance representative today!
(516) 933-3555
Info@TaxCorrectionAgency.Org

About TCA

Tax Correction Agency (TCA) was founded in 1991 by Lance Geller and Peter Norberto to provide professional representation for homeowners seeking real estate tax relief.  Utilizing proprietary computer programs, and in accord with taxpayer rights guaranteed by New York State law, TCA represented over 2,000 Nassau County homeowners in its first year, and won over 97% of its cases.
 
In the decades since then, TCA has filed about 400,000 residential property tax grievances in jurisdictions across New York.  Today, we work exclusively in Nassau County.
 
We have always done business as Tax Correction Agency; no name change in 33 years.

The Process of Grieving Your Property Tax Assessment in Nassau County

A property tax grievance is the process of challenging your assessed value, also known as your assessment.  This is the number to which many other numbers are applied in the calculation of your property taxes, which are your school and general levy bills.  All other things equal, a lower assessed value means you pay less in taxes.
 
Homeowners in Nassau County are notified each January by the Nassau County Assessment Department of their property’s tentative assessed value for the tax year that starts twenty-one (21) months later.  For example, this January 2024 Nassau homeowners receive their Notice of Tentative Assessed Value for 2025/26.  That is the assessment year starting with the first-half school bill in October 2025.
Under New York State law, homeowners have a right to challenge that value, regardless of what it is or how the Assessment Department came up with it.  You can challenge it on your own, or you can challenge it by way of representation.  TCA is representation.  We represent you first to the Assessment Review Commission (ARC), an independent agency empowered to either offer a lower final assessed value or leave the Assessment Department’s tentative unchanged.  (Note that ARC cannot issue a higher final; only lower, or no change).
 
If ARC fails to make a satisfactory offer, and we have a case we can make at court, we may also represent you at Small Claims Assessment Review (SCAR, i.e. small claims court).  We typically have an ARC result anywhere from seven to fifteen months, and if applicable go to SCAR during the summer, before the start of the tax year in October.
Whether we win at ARC or at SCAR, a successful grievance means you pay less in taxes than you otherwise would, starting with the October first-half school bill, continuing with the second-half school bill and both general levy bills.
 
Because a greivance is won in advance of the start of the assessment year, the savings are layered on top of every other change that occurs from one year to the next.  If you were bound for a $1,000 tax increase, for example, and a grievance saves you $800, you will experience a $200 increase instead.  If you were bound for a $100 tax decrease year-over-year, to give another example, and a grievance saves you $200, then your taxes decline by $300.  Etc.
 
Savings are the difference between taxes owed at the corrected assessed value that we won, and taxes owed at the final assessed value that would have prevailed without the greivance.  You will see the taxes you owe with our work on the property tax bills, and/or on the County Land Records Viewer; but you will never see the taxes you would have owed wihtout the grievance on your bills.  To calculate what you would have owed, we have to recalculate the property tax bills at the assessed value we defeated, which is either your tentative assessed value, adjusted tentative assessed value (if any), or final assessed value (if one was issued before we won a case at SCAR).
Our fee is 40% of savings if we win the reduction ARC, or 50% of first-year’s savings won at SCAR.  There is also a $30 court-imposed filing fee – that goes to the court, if and only if we go to court, and may or may not be refunded to you at a later date.  We only bill for first-year’s savings.  A lower assessed value can carry forward either in full or in part into future tax years, but we don’t bill for that – we only bill for the first-year savings pursuant to the grievance we did for that year.
 
There is no auto-renewal or automatic registration, though we do encourage you to sign up each year, typically in the fall, as there is no downside to you doing so.  Each year requires its own authorization form, which we send you in September if you have requested it, or if you are an existing client.
All we need to get started is a signed authorization form,.  You can apply online, print a form off our website, or request a form be mailed, emailed, or faxed.
 
Right now we are filing for the 2025/26 assessment year.  That is the year beginning with your first-half school bill in October 2025, continuing until September 2026.  The ARC filing deadline is currently March 1, 2024.  This deadline is quite firm; if it missed, you lose the chance to challenge your assessment entirely for that year.  Once received, we will process your authorization and send a follow-up letter within a week or so.  Then we will file with ARC before the deadline, receive a determination by no later than March 2025, go to SCAR if necessary by summer 2025, and any effect of our work will appear first on the first-half school bill in October 2025.
 
You may reach us by email at info@TaxCorrectionAgency.org, by phone at (516) 933-3555 during regular business hours, by fax at (631) 467-1400, via our contact form, or by regular mail at Tax Correction Agency, 3279 Veterans Hwy Ste D-2, Ronkonkoma, NY 11779.
 

Frequently Asked Questions

No. By law, the assessor cannot raise your assessment because you filed a grievance. Your assessment can only go down or remain the same.
Nassau County conducted a reassessment, which is being phased in between 2020 and 2025.  This means tax increases for about two thirds of Nassau homeowners.  The 2024/25 assessment year will be Year 5 of this process.
No one from the assessor’s office or TCA will come to your home.
No. TCA prepares and files all papers and makes all appearances for you.
Exemptions are tax breaks for people in certain categories, such as seniors or veterans.  They are separate from a tax grievance, which challenges the assessed value of the home.  Typically a grievance has no effect on exemptions, nor vice versa.  In the rare exceptions, we do factor that into our billing, so you’re never charged for savings we didn’t win.
Yes. Because real estate values, levels of assessment, tentative assessments, and other factors can change unexpectedly from one year to the next, many homeowners who reduced their property taxes in the past are still able to win.  The process takes two years, and is done in advance, so it’s best to file every year and win reductions when possible.
Yes, of course.  We will not charge any interest or late fees.

No. The grievance process is almost always in advance of the tax year, and takes about two years.

Yes. You have one opportunity to file a grievance every year. Once a tax year’s deadline passes, there is no recourse to file for that year.  Filing a grievance each year ensures that you will not miss an opportunity to lower your taxes.  Waiting for a resolution, which may not come until after the next filing deadline, could cost you in taxes down the line.

In Nassau County, the tax grievance process generally takes about two years from beginning to end.  We begin accepting authorizations in the fall, then file with ARC in the winter and spring, negotiate with ARC by the next fall or winter, go to court if necessary the following summer, before the assessment we’ve (hopefully) won takes effect in the fall.  The process is long, is all done in advance, and every year we are dealing with multiple tax years from the past, present, and future.

You can visit the County’s Land Records Viewer to see what you owe in school and general levy property taxes.  Note that village taxes are not included on the County’s website, nor Glen Cove school taxes.

No one knows!  Call your Receiver of Taxes, ask that question, and you will get the same answer.  It’s not knowable.  What is certain is that if you can get your assessed value reduced from the tentative value the Assessor determines in advance, then you will pay less than you would otherwise be destined to pay.

Unfortunately, the term “freezing” is very misleading.  Each year, the Assessor’s Office issues a tentative assessed value for every home, which takes effect about two years later.  “Freezing” only means that the tentative assessed values are “copied” from one year to the next.  That’s all.  You can and should challenge that tentative assessment.  It could be wrong — twice! — or it could be right once, but then too high the next year.  Etc.  It also doesn’t mean your taxes will stay the same: many things change from one year to the next, including budgets, federal and state aid, levies, tax rate, exemptions, abatements, number of households, etc.  “Freezing” has no effect on anything but the tentative assessed values — and even then, again, they are not “frozen” so much as “copied” from one year to the next.

Yes. However, homeowners who file for themselves may not get the reduction they deserve. Many are unprepared and do not have the time, experience, data, software, or knowledge to deal with ARC and, if necessary, small claims court. We have 30 years of experience, and all the tools we need to negotiate your case to the best possible result, in or out of court.

In general, no.  There are 64 villages in Nassau, each with its own way of doing things.  That includes different deadlines, norms, processes, paperwork, offices, rolls, data formats, etc.  Each village typically has too few households to be worth the close attention of a tax grievance professional.  Every few years though, when we feel that the village rolls have gotten way out of line with reality, we select a few villages that we think are worth challenging.  For now, though, we aren’t challenging any village assessments.  Of course, we don’t bill for village savings either.

No. If you sign with more than one company, you will delay your case.  If duplicate representation is not resolved in a timely fashion, you might even end up with no grievance at all, potentially costing your hundreds or even thousands in property taxes.

Many things change from one year to the next, including budgets, federal and state aid, levies, tax rates, exemptions, abatements, number of households, etc.  A grievance can only challenge one variable — the assessed value — and even then, it is challenging a tentative assessed value for a future year that may be different from the final assessed values of prior years.  For example, for 2024/25, your tentative assessed value might be higher than your final assessed value of 2023/24.  Or, you may have an exemption that gains or loses value.  And so on.  Regardless of what other variables change, a reduction from the tentative assessed value to a lower final assessed value, for the same tax year, will always mean you pay less in taxes than you otherwise would, for that year, as assessed value is the base to which all other variables are applied.

We are a small team of dedicated professionals who tend to each and every client individually.  People also tend to call all at the same time — when the authorization period opens up in September, when the tentative assessed values are issued in January, when big tax-related news breaks, when ARC and SCAR decisions come in, when bills go out, etc.  Please make sure to call Monday to Friday, 9 AM to 5 PM, always leave a message if you don’t get a hold of someone, and know that we will always call you back.  You should also feel free to write us any time, at info@TaxCorrectionAgency.org.