Rye Town Settles Tax Dispute with Home Depot

Rye Town Supervisor Joe Carvin has announced the successful settlement of a property tax valuation challenge that lasted more than eight years. The Home Depot dispute amounted to a $180,000,000 difference of opinion over the value of its Port Chester location.

Supervisor Carvin said that he and his Rye Town team directly communicated with senior Home Depot management to get to the bottom of the matter, and circumvent what Mr. Carvin termed “poor advice” and an “attempt to game the system” by Home Depot’s Westchester-based local counsel. 

Supervisor Carvin issued the following statement to the public to explain the circumstances of this settlement:

In a statement, Carvin said that Home Depot's local representatives submitted assessements that averaged 14 percent of the Rye Town assessors figures with no corroborating documentation and challenged the Port Chester Home Depot tax bill for nine years from 2003 to 2011.

Carvin said he communicated to Home Depot top management that "by submitting ridiculously low valuations they were not acting in good faith." He requested they provide accurate documentation of their property value and conform to Town law.

According Carvin, Home Depot conceded there were only two years in which there was a potential discrepance, 2007 and 2008. They withdrew their challenges for 7 of the 9 years.

"Since at that point they were acting in good faith, we agreed to lower the values in each of those years from $27,000,000  to $ 25,750,000," said Carvin.

Rye Town avoided the cost of adjudicating the dispute and the loss of town and school tax revenues. The town's compromise amounted to 1.2 percent or a $2.5 million return to Home Depot.

"In the end," said Carvin, "we want to salute the good people at Home Depot headquarters and want to thank them for doing the right thing at the end of the day.”

 This article includes information submitted in a formal press release.