According to reports shared at Tuesday night’s Falls Church City Council meeting, Falls Church residents hoping to sidestep the new limits on federal property tax deductions in the newly-passed federal tax reform package piled into the City treasurer’s office at City Hall in the final week of 2017 to pay over $4 million in taxes due, in hopes they would be able to deduct the full amount in tax filings for 2017.
The new law reportedly limits deductions taken on state and local taxes to $10,000, compared to the no limit rule before it passed. Falls Church was named in a number of published reports nationally as the kind of well-heeled jurisdiction whose citizens would be penalized by this rule, not only by the limit, but by the resale value of their homes, as well.
It was noted at Tuesday’s Council meeting that some people were striking “seven figure checks” at the office of City Treasurer Jody Acosta, but the latest word is that it remains unclear whether or not those early payments would qualify for 100 percent deductions under the new law. And the Council was reminded that the $4 million plus in cash infusing the City’s coffers “does not constitute a windfall,” because it is all money that was budgeted in, but only to be paid by June 2018 and not December 2017. The only advantage to the City will be whatever interest on that money that can be accrued in the meantime.
