SYRACUSE, N.Y. – Seniors and singles would be big winners under Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s latest plan to help New Yorkers facing some of the nation’s largest property tax bills.

Yet a two-income couple living next door to a single parent or a set of grandparents could miss out altogether on the hundreds of dollars Cuomo wants to send back to property tax payers each year.

That’s because some households might earn just enough to push them out of consideration for property tax relief, under Cuomo’s current proposal.

Figure it out yourself. Take 6 percent of your annual federally adjusted income. (It’s the same for single and joint-filing taxpayers.) Add up your yearly property tax bills.

If the property taxes are the higher than the 6 percent, and you make less than $250,000, you’d qualify for Cuomo’s new real property tax credit.

Otherwise, you don’t qualify. That’s because the governor wants to give more help to homeowners with smaller incomes and higher property tax bills.

“Those are people with less income who cannot afford it,” Cuomo said last week. “This is a terrible issue all across the state of New York.”

About half of the state’s homeowners would qualify. In Upstate New York, that’s more than half a million homeowners, with an average tax credit of more than $700 each year.

Yet not everyone would win. Some multi-income families, businesses and many apartment dwellers would be cut out – even though they would be footing the bill for the credits. For the most part, state income taxes would pay for the property tax credit.

This all assumes the State Legislature will approve Cuomo’s plan as is. That probably won’t happen, especially as more winners and losers become more apparent.

Still, Cuomo has kicked off his second term with an aggressive approach to tie income earnings to property tax bills. More details will come Wednesday, when Cuomo presents the 2015-16 budget.

So far, he’s set the tone for a debate about property tax relief that will continue for at least three months, until he and state lawmakers agree on a budget at the end of March. It seems likely that some form of this tax credit – called a “circuit-breaker” – has a shot at becoming law.

Sen. John DeFrancisco, R-Syracuse, said he wants to learn more details before passing judgment. “I just don’t know how many people it’s going to affect and how many people it won’t,” said DeFrancisco, R-Syracuse, and chairman of the Senate Finance Committee.

Here’s what we’ve learned so far:

Winners

Seniors and Singles
Homeowners on fixed or moderate incomes would win big. That includes seniors and single-filing taxpayers, according to E.J. McMahon, an Albany budget watchdog who is president and founder of the Empire Center for Public Policy, a conservative group.

Property taxes are much more likely to eat into a larger chunk of those moderate incomes, McMahon said.

“That’s likely to be people who bought the house 30 years ago, the kids are gone, they’re making retirement,” McMahon says.

Consider a retired couple earning $60,000 in pensions. If their property tax bill is more than $3,600 a year, they’d be in.

Average Onondaga County households
The average household income in Onondaga County is about $54,000. That homeowner would also be eligible – as long as the home’s property tax bill was at least $3,241. That is likely. The average property tax bill in the county is $3,583.

Low-income renters
Under the proposal, renters earning up to $150,000 could also get a tax credit.

The governor’s proposal assumes that 13.75 percent of rent payments go toward landlord’s property tax bills. He wants to give credits for that – up to a point.

Would you qualify? Add up 12 months of rent payments. Multiply that by 0.1375. Is the answer more than 6 percent of your income? If so, you’d qualify.

For an $800 a month apartment, a renter would have to make less than $22,000 to qualify.

Long Island and New York City suburbs
That $250,000 income cap is all about Long Island and the lower Hudson Valley. Those areas have a mix of high costs of living, higher than average salaries and hefty property taxes.

Consider two homeowners, one in Baldwinsville, the other in Washingtonville in Orange County. The home values and income averages for those school districts are similar, according to an analysis of state data provided by Rick Timbs, executive director of the East Syracuse-based Statewide School Finance Consortium.

The total property taxes in that Orange County school district (an average of $7,306 per homeowner) are nearly double those in the Baldwinsville district ($3,718). The Orange County homeowner could make $122,000 and still qualify for the credits.

“It’s fair,” says Ron Deutsch, executive director of the Fiscal Policy Institute, a left-leaning think tank. “It is based on income. If you’re overburdened, you’re going to get relief.”

Also important to note: Those Washingtonville homeowners wouldn’t be getting as large a credit as the ones in Baldwinsville. “As the income level rises, the benefits phase out,” Deutsch said.

Losers

Some two-income homeowners
Let’s go back to the Baldwinsville school district, where the average property tax bill is $3,718.

If that was your exact tax bill, you’d have to make $61,965 or less to qualify — all incomes filed jointly.

That could make it hard for many two-income families to qualify, McMahon says. Income from an extra part-time job could push that family out of reach of the credit.

All other taxpayers
Cuomo introduced this idea as a property tax cut. And it would certainly feel that way if you’re the homeowner who qualifies.

But it’s actually a tax credit applied to state income taxes. If you qualify, your income taxes would be reduced by as much as $2,000, the maximum credit under Cuomo’s proposal.

Cuomo estimates it would cost the state $1.66 billion each year.

Who makes that up? Other state taxpayers – mainly businesses and income tax payers, including ones who wouldn’t benefit from this new credit.

“This is subsidized by the 1.5 million homeowners who won’t qualify, and other taxpayers in New York or apartment dwellers with high incomes,” McMahon says.

It’s also paid for with income taxes from people who commute into New York to work, McMahon says. Deutsch believes that claim is overstated.

Property tax cap exceeders
A smaller group of homeowners — including ones in Madison and Cayuga counties, if the plan were in place this year — would likely be left out if their local governments failed to stay under the property tax cap.

The tax cap, enacted in 2011, means to keep local governments and school districts from increasing tax levies by more than 2 percent each year. It’s a cornerstone of Cuomo’s first term, and he wants to build even more pressure to keep localities under the cap.

Consider this year. Seven counties in the state, for example, told Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli they planned to exceed the cap in 2015. That includes Madison and Cayuga counties. Seven cities did the same, including Ithaca, Oswego and Fulton. Across the state, 175 towns were in the same boat.

Bottom line? If your county, municipality or school district failed to stay under the cap, it would make it much, much harder for individual homeowners to qualify.

Take a homeowner in the town of Cazenovia, Madison County, where those two governments indicated plans to override the cap. In that case, only a homeowner’s school district taxes would be weighed against his or her income to meet that 6 percent threshold. If those school taxes alone weren’t more than 6 percent of the homeowner’s income, he wouldn’t qualify.

Remember, this would be an annual tax credit. And local governments face the tax cap question every year. That same homeowner in Cazenovia might not qualify in 2015, but could in 2016.

Businesses, including some farms
No businesses would qualify for this new credit. Some people who run small businesses out of their homes might see some benefits, Deutsch said.

And farms? It would depend on how the business is structured. A farmer with a home and 20 acres all under one ownership could qualify, Deutsch said, depending of course on the basic income thresholds that apply to all homeowners.

But some farmers split their assets into different ownerships. In that case, the home might be eligible, but the other land – and other property taxes – wouldn’t.

Cuomo hasn’t yet disclosed details like that, not unusual in this stage in the state’s lawmaking calendar.

“He’s just floating ideas,” DeFrancisco said,” to see how they get received.”