Lawrence N. Gray, Esq.
20 Fireplace Drive
Supervisor
Patrick Vecchio
99 West Main
Street
Smithtown, New
York 11787
March 13, 2009
Re: Sal DiCarlo, North
Fork Management & Tax Assessor Gregory Hild
The Smithtown
News of March 12, 2009 reports that Sal DiCarlo demolished woodsheds of
the former Suffolk Lumber site at 102 Main Street in Smithtown without the
required permits in advance a stop-work order. DiCarlo did this in order to have to save $40,000 on the taxes
otherwise due on his property in time for the March 1st assessment
deadline. “According to [Tax Assessor
Gregory] Hild, since the March 1 deadline fell on a Sunday this year the
taxable status deadline was Monday, March 2.
Mr. Hild said considering the fact that [DiCarlo’s] North Fork
demolished the buildings on the weekend prior to the taxable status date he
must now lower the tax assessment on the site.
Mr. Hild said that whether a demolition permit was properly issued or
not, he is still required by law to lower the assessment on the property based
on the fact that the buildings have been reduced to demolition debris.” Supervisor Vecchio, this is the argument
which Vincent Trimarco, Esq. should make in court after Tax Assessor Hild
assesses this property at its current rate which is to include the $40,000.
DiCarlo may
grieve the taxes on the 102 Main Street site but Hild is not to take or consider
any proof that the structures have been torn down. He is to treat them as still
standing for tax purposes. That’s right. It is called equitable estoppel.
Translated, it is an application of the law’s axiom that one may not prove and
then profit from his own wrongdoing. Let Mr. Trimarco, if so directed by his
client DiCarlo, sue in Supreme Court at which time the Town may assert the
doctrine of equitable estoppel when DiCarlo seeks to prove that the structures
should not have been taxed as they presently are because they were torn down
prior to the assessment deadline. Mr.Hild is not a lawyer. He is simply wrong. “The
law” is not an ass, contrary to what Dickens’s Mr. M’Cawber said – at least not
a complete ass all of the time.
Equitable estoppel will allow fiction to be fact for assessment
purposes, meaning that the structures will be deemed still standing until a
demolition permit has been obtained in accordance with law. This “fact” will
put DiCarlo past the March 1st-2d deadline where he would otherwise
have been except for his lawlessness.
SupervisorVecchio, if you and the rest of the Smithtown Council
allow this “DiCarlo Tax Reduction Procedure” to go unchallenged you will
establish a flawed precedent and indeed make Asses of yourselves and the law.
It’s bad enough you have an ass in the Tax Assessor’s Office. It’s all very
simple. Please send a copy of this letter to the Tax Assessor and tell him to
stop making ill-advised statements as to the assessment statute’s deadline “imperative”
which does not here obtain in light of DiCarlo’s lawless stunt. Consequences
cannot alter statutes but they may help to fix their meaning via equitable estoppel so as to avoid
ridiculous results. The Tax Assessor
reads the statute’s deadline literally and in isolation from broader principles
of law.
Yours truly, Lawrence N. Gray,Esq. Cc: Town
Council Smithtown News