Owners sue city.

Over 100 property owners have filed a lawsuit against the city claiming they overpaid taxes by mi11ions of dollars as a result of the tax assessment scandal.

"When you have rampant and systematic corruption over decades, you cause a shifting in the responsibility of the allocation of the tax pie," said attorney Jeffrey Golkin, who is representing the owners.

In the lawsuit, filed last week in the state Supreme Court, the owners are seeking compensatory and punitive damages against the city saying they overpaid tax bills to compensate for owners whose tax bills were lowered with bribes. Golkin could not give a total amount being sought but said one of the owners in the suit, Lori Realty Co., is seeking $8 million.

It was almost a year ago that the tax scandal first came to light On Feb. 24, 2002, the U.S. Attorney's office handed down indictments to 18 current and former tax assessors charging them with reportedly taking $10 million in bribes to alter assessments on more than 550 buildings in the last 35 years. At the center of the tax assessment scandal was Albert Schussler, a tax consultant who worked for many prominent building owners to reduce tax bills. Under the indictments, Schussler reportedly approached tax assessors prior to a building assessment and offered a bribe in exchange for a reduced assessment So far, 15 assessors have pleaded guilty to bribery charges. Two others are scheduled to go on trial May 19. Schussler died Jan. 6 at age 85 before he could stand trial for the charges.

Building owners have not been implicated in the matter and several owners who reportedly benefited as a result of the bribes have said they were unaware of any wrongdoing.

The city is seeking to review past tax records and recoup some of the losses stemming from the scandal, but Golkin said any recouped money belongs to property owners who overpaid their bills, not to the city. Under the current system for assessing taxes, the city seeks to raise a certain amount through property taxes. It then divides the amount among all the city's property owners. Tax bills are computed based on assessed value of individual properties, Golkin said.

Since some owners received lower assessments than they should have because of bribes, other owners received higher assessments than they should have to make up the difference, he said.

"The city got its money each tax year, but they shifted the burden from one taxpayer to another," Golkin said.

Marty Applebaum, vice president of Lori Realty Co., said one of the buildings the company manages at 356 W. 44th St contains six rent-controlled apartments and faces a $40,000 tax bill each year. The owners have filed appeals of the tax assessments for the past 8 years, but have never been successful in having them reduced.

Ibon Muhammad is president of the Park Slope North Housing Development Fund Corp., a limited equity co-op complex with 23 brownstones. Each brownstone has an $8,000 yearly tax bill, almost three times the bill other similar properties in the neighborhood must pay.

"It makes no sense to me that, with an affordable housing complex, our biggest financial burden is to the City of New York" Muhammad said.