12/08/2025 Assessment Community Weekly
Remove STAR credit identifiers from your data files
We determine eligibility for the STAR credit annually. It is not safe to assume that someone who received the credit in one year will receive it again the following year. Therefore, the markers that identify STAR credit recipients should not be carried over from year to year.
Moreover, STAR credits are income tax credits, and the names of credit recipients are not subject to public disclosure. While the law allows us to provide you with lists of STAR credit recipients, it also states that the information contained on these lists must be considered confidential and may not be subject to further disclosure under FOIL or otherwise. If STAR credit markers are left on the data file after school tax bills have been run, it could result in the inadvertent public disclosure of this confidential data.
Accordingly, you are advised to remove all STAR credit markers from your data file after school tax bills are run to ensure that no inadvertent releases of this confidential data occur. The procedure for doing so depends on the software you use.
RPSV4 Users: After school tax bills have been processed, users of ORPTS’ Tax Bill Print Utility should purge the STAR credit markers from their database. If you don’t remove the markers, a notation that only applies to STAR check recipients may inappropriately display on the town and county tax roll. That would make it possible for members of the public to identify STAR credit recipients simply by looking at those rolls.
To remove the markers, browse to the RPSV4 Updates section of the Online Assessment Community, and follow the instructions in the release notes for the STAR_credit_purge.exe file.
Non-RPSV4 Users: Users of third-party bill printing programs should review their processes with their vendor to ensure that it is not possible to identify the STAR credit recipients from a record that is accessible to the public.
New STAR in-person income reporting events
To date, we’ve mailed nearly 70,000 RP-5300-WSC letters to impacted STAR exemption recipients across the state.
Starting this month, we’ll be hosting events across New York State for homeowners who received a letter requesting their income (RP-5300-WSC).
At these events, Tax Department employees will help homeowners submit their income information and answer any other questions about the STAR program.
Homeowners may also submit their income information using the Homeowner Benefit Portal, our STAR Income Worksheet or by contacting us at 518-457-2036.
For more information and the schedule of the events, see Did you receive an income request letter for STAR?
If you are contacted by a property owner about the RP-5300-WSC or one of these events, please direct them to our STAR Resource Center featuring our new Respond to a STAR letter page and the page for these events.
You may also contact the Assessor and County Director Hotline by phone or via email for additional assistance. Please remember, assessor hotline resources are for assessors and county directors and should not be shared with taxpayers.
New Judicial Case
We've added Matter of Shoreham-Wading Riv. Cent. Sch. Dist. v Town of Brookhaven Indus. Dev. Corp. to new Judicial cases.