Last-Minute Rush to Prepay Taxes Gives Way to Confusion and Anger<br />“And I can’t give them a yes or a no.”<br />The new tax bill, and its $10,000 cap on all local<br />and state tax deductions, has generated a variety of strong emotions — including anxiety and frustration — in places like Hempstead.<br />Normally, it would be quiet this time of year, but there is a lot of anxiety because people don’t know what the impact of the tax bill will be.”<br />In the last two days, more than 3,500 people came in to prepay their 2018 property taxes, 2,000 of them on Thursday.<br />The town had already assessed the 2018 property tax bill, allowing residents to prepay their town, county and special district taxes in 2017, he said.<br />In Nassau County, which includes Hempstead, the average state<br />and local tax deduction in the county, including property taxes, topped $20,000 in 2015, among the highest in the country, according to data from the I. R.S.<br />“I’m not sure it’s fun if you’re a person going through it.”<br />The confusion this week stems from the provision in the new tax bill<br />that caps the previously unlimited deduction for state and local taxes, and the I. R.S.<br />By Ben Casselman and Jeffery C. Mays<br />In Hempstead, a Long Island town where the typical property tax bill tops $10,000,<br />residents have lined up all week to prepay those taxes for next year.
