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Nassau County has received an unexpected holiday 'present' in the form of a $2-million payment by the Town of Oyster Bay, Comptroller Howard Weitzman revealed today. The payment represents more than $2 million in 'restored taxes' owed to the county for the last six years but deposited in the Town of Oyster Bay's treasury, Comptroller Weitzman said. Oyster Bay's underpayment was found as a result of a Comptroller's Office examination of property tax payments owed to the county by Nassau's towns and cities. The check for $2,093,074.60 was received on Tuesday, December 21, "in time to provide some holiday joy to County Executive Suozzi and the county's Office of Management and Budget," Comptroller Weitzman noted. Restored taxes refers to monies collected for a municipality when a property no longer enjoys a tax exemption and its taxes return to their pre-exemption level. The difference between the property's true (restored) tax and its previous reduced tax is collected by the Town Receiver of Taxes who, in turn, is obliged to distribute the appropriate portion to the county. "We discovered that the Oyster Bay Receiver of Taxes had deposited all of these funds into the Town's own treasury," the Comptroller said. "On December 10, I notified Town Supervisor John Venditto about the discrepancy. To his credit, Supervisor Venditto responded quickly and positively to our notice, making arrangements to pay the funds to the county in a timely manner." This is not the first time that Oyster Bay has underpaid its share of general property taxes to Nassau. A similar audit in 1993 by the Nassau Comptroller's Office showed the town had failed to release funds owed during the period from 1987-1992.
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