Actual-value taxing on target for 2010?

A long-delayed plan to change the way Philadelphia calculates property taxes may get pushed a little further down the road to implementation.

The Board of Revision of Taxes (BRT) plans to deliver this week to Mayor Nutter and City Council a trove of information on the "actual-value initiative."

The city uses a "fractional" system, assessing Philadelphia's 450,000 residential and 125,000 commercial properties at 32 percent of their value and then applying a tax rate.

In the actual-value system, approved by the BRT in July, properties will be assessed at 100 percent of their value but taxed at a lower rate.

Nutter's five-year financial plan, designed to close a $1.4 billion deficit, calls for a two-year temporary increase in the city's property-tax rate: a 19 percent increase on July 1 and a 14.5 percent increase in July 2010.

Council yesterday proposed an alternative plan, scrapping the property-tax increase in favor of a five-year increase in the sales tax.

With the actual-value system possibly ready to go by July 2010, that sets up the potentially confusing scenario of having a property tax increase one year in the current system and then another tax increase the following year in the new system.

The actual-value system has been repeatedly delayed since 2006. Those delays have been explained in part as giving time to the BRT to collect the information for the change.

BRT spokesman Kevin Feeley said the agency expected to deliver the information to Nutter and Council today or tomorrow.

Council President Anna Verna yesterday postponed the BRT's budget hearing from this afternoon until Monday, saying her colleagues needed time to understand the information. Verna said Council is seeking a briefing from the BRT on the information.

Nutter yesterday said he didn't want to speculate on whether the actual-value system would be implemented for tax bills due in 2011. He said his staff would need time to test the BRT information for accuracy.

"Without having the information and the data, it's really hard to say what, when, and how we would embark upon actual implementation, since we don't know the veracity of the data in the first place," Nutter said.

Councilman Darrell Clarke yesterday predicted the city won't be able to implement a temporary property- tax increase and the actual-value system together.

"I have no confidence in government's ability to do both of those things at the same time," he said. *