Independent Budget Office

When is a luxury condo not a luxury condo?    read more »

Renters, beware! You are about to get shafted—thanks to property taxes.    read more »

The city Independent Budget Office just released a report [pdf] on the city's economic health which says that the mayor's warnings about a projected 2008 budget gap of $3.8 billion "appear premature" thanks to "better-than-expected tax revenues."

More:

"Based largely on the on IBO's latest tax revenue estimates, the city's short-term fiscal picture appears even brighter than the Mayor's most recent projection. We expect tax revenue to be more than $250 million higher than projected by the Mayor's office in November for the current year and more than $1 billion annually above their estimates for 2008-2010--even though we project tax revenue will grow more slowly than it has in the recent past."

Far from Bloomberg's projected gap of $3.8 billion, the IBO expects "2008 to end with a surplus of $688 million."

The downside for the city, of course, is that this report is not going to make it any easier to ask for more education money from Albany. But I'm sure that's a worry for another day.

-- Azi Paybarah

Bruce Ratner's so-called friends are about to cost him tens of millions of dollars in lost tax breaks because of a bill pending in the City Council.

The stormy debate over the 421-a multifamily housing tax incentive still has a few days to play out (and another year in the state Legislature), but the version backed by Speaker Christine Quinn and a majority of City Council members would revoke a 15- to 25-year tax abatement that Ratner's condos would have received had they been built under current rules.  read more »

More after the jump...

- Matthew Schuerman

Neil deMause has more details on yesterday's Yankees-Mets hearing, including the explanation from the Parks Department's Josh Laird that the reason the city's contribution for the Yankees has increased was due to "overall inflation in construction costs."  read more »

Real-estate developers love Michael Bloomberg.  read more »