Tax FAQs

a.  School District Dollars go directly to your school district to pay for the school budget you vote on in May each year.  Contact your school district directly or visit the school website for budget details.  We collect the taxes on behalf of the school district; depending where your property is in Perinton, you pay school taxes to one of the following districts:

  • Fairport (fairport.org)
  • Victor (victorschools.org)
  • Pittsford (pittsfordschools.org)
  • Penfield (penfield.edu)
  • East Rochester (erschools.org)

b.  Combined Town & County Dollars go to both the Town of Perinton & the County of Monroe as follows: 

County Budget: (24% of Perinton Homeowner Budget)

State & Federal Mandates are services that the County is required to provide:

General County Services are the additional services provided by the County, exclusive of those required by State/Federal Law.  Some of the services include Sheriff’s road patrol, County roads and bridges, County Parks, 911 Communication Center, and staff departments. 

Sales Tax Credit to Perinton represents the share of total sales tax collections credited to towns (outside of villages).  Whereas villages and the City of Rochester receive their total allocation of sales tax in cash, property owners in towns receive a portion of their sales tax as a credit, which reduces their property tax bill. 

County Services – Localities consist of charges for Mutual Aid Fire Training, Election Expenses, Tax Roll and Bill Preparation, etc., which, under State Law, may be charged back to specific municipalities through assessments against property in those municipalities. 
Monroe County Pure Waters (P.W. 2) funds are used to pay for the operation, maintenance and debt retirement of the County Pure Waters program.  This includes sanitary sewer transmission lines and the Van Lare Sewage Treatment Plant in Irondequoit. 

Town Budget: (7% of Perinton Homeowner Budget)

Perinton Town Taxes fund the general Town governmental operation.  Perinton’s full value tax rate has been one of the three lowest in Monroe County for more than 35 years.  

Special Districts consist of a fire protection tax and an ambulance service tax, and where applicable other special districts, such as lighting. 

Perinton Consolidated Sewer District is funded by any property benefitting from sanitary service within the Town, to pay for the operation and maintenance of the system by the Town.  An additional fee is charged for the principal and interest payments on debt incurred for sewer construction, based on household rates (not based on assessment).

Note that village residents pay for their local municipal services through a Fairport Village Tax Bill

For the Town portion of taxes (approximately 7% of tax total), we encourage residents to attend the twice monthly Town Board meetings each Fall while the budget is being developed; meetings are usually the 2nd & 4th Wednesdays of each month, at 7:30pm.  Refer to the Town website for details and agendas.  For school taxes (approximately 65% of tax total for Fairport schools), be sure to participate in the budget meetings held early each calendar year; full details of meetings can be found on the school district website.  County taxes are approximately 25% of the total taxes, and are developed at the Monroe County level. 

Refer to the Assessment tab on the Town website for information on:

  • How assessments are determined.
  • Informal reviews.
  • Formal grievance procedure. 

NY State law* dictates that you are responsible for the taxes on your property even if you did not get a bill or if it went astray in the mail.  If you don’t have a bill (January for Town & County taxes; September for School taxes), you can access & print it directly from www.monroecounty.gov (View/Pay Taxes Online) or call us at 585.223.0770 for a copy or more information. 

Unfortunately, NY State law* does not allow the Town of Perinton Tax Office to forgive penalties under any circumstance.

*Per NYS Real Property Tax Law §922, the failure to mail any statement or the failure of the owner of property to receive the statement does not in any way affect the validity of the taxes or interest prescribed by law. 

It can take months for a deed to come from the County to be recorded in the Assessor’s Office and to be updated in the tax system.  We mail duplicate tax bills for taxes to new owners when we get notice from the Assessment Office.

  • Contact the Town Tax Office, especially to check for any unpaid taxes. 

  • Be sure to contact the Town Assessment Office to learn more about the STAR exemption for school and any other exemptions for which you may qualify.

  • If applicable, contact your Village Tax Office to check for any unpaid taxes. 

Postage meters are postage, not postmarks with dates.  They don’t prove that your payment was mailed on time.  We recommend you witness a hand stamped U.S. Postmark or send via FedEx, UPS or Express Mail.  We are not responsible for lost mail, and if a payment arrives in our office after the due date without a Postmark, it is considered paid on the date received. 

Banks discourage the use of on-line banking for tax payments because they WILL NOT guarantee your payment will be delivered to our office by the due date.  (They are often bundled with other on-line payments.) On-line bank checks arrive in our office with no U.S. Postmark on the envelope so we must use the date the payment arrives in the office.  If mail is lost or delayed by the Post Office, you will be responsible for any accrued interest. 

a.  Who is eligible to get the STAR Exemption? 

Every homeowner is eligible for the Basic STAR Exemption IF the property is the owner’s primary/legal residence and the combined income of owners does not exceed $500,000 within the income tax year.

b.  What is Enhanced STAR?

The Enhanced STAR is an increased benefit for the primary residences of senior citizens (age 65 or older) with qualifying incomes.

*Both Basic and Enhanced STAR exemptions apply only to school taxes

Call the Assessor’s Office at 585.223.0770 for more details and information on how to apply for STAR. 

Yes, tax information is public information which is available online at the Monroe County website at www.monroecounty.gov. 

INSTRUCTIONS FOR OBTAINING PROPERTY AND SCHOOLTAX INFORMATION ONLINE:

  1. Access the Monroe County home page by clicking the above link
  2. Agree to the Real Property Portal disclaimer by selecting I Agree
  3. Enter your house number & street name (select from pulldown menu if similar addresses appear), click on Search; your property will appear on new screen w/aerial view.
  4. Select Pay Property Taxes (green icon, upper right) to view property tax information

From here, you can view or print tax info (select from the 4 icons at top of page

  1. School Tax Statement – most current school tax bill (same as mailed bill)
  2. Combined Town/County Tax Statement – most current Town/Coutty tax bill (same as mailed bill)
  3. Duplicate School Statement – indicates payments & current balance
  4. Duplicate Combined Statement – indicates payments & current balance

Also, from here you can click on Payment HistoryPay Taxes or other icons at bottom of screen!