Councilman tries to assess AVI impact
Councilman Bill Green today tried to shed more light on what will happen to city property tax bills under the mayor’s proposal to shift to a property tax system that relies on market values.
Councilman tries to assess AVI impact
Catherine Lucey
Councilman Bill Green today tried to shed more light on what will happen to city property tax bills under the mayor’s proposal to shift to a property tax system that relies on market values.
Green for weeks has been predicting that the move could prove to be a windfall for commercial property owners, because their properties are currently more accurately assessed than residential properties, which are collectively assessed well below their market values. As a result, he predicts that a shift to a tax system where a straight rate is placed on a market value could mean that business property owners in the aggregate could see their bills drop while residential property owners could see an aggregate increase.
Nutter’s plan to move to the new system, known as the Actual Value Initiative, sets a revenue goal that would memorialize two tax hikes billed as temporary and also bring in an extra $94 million for the cash-strapped school district.
Today Green unveiled a massive excel spreadsheet in which he tries to show what could happen under AVI. Based on Green’s calculations, the shift to AVI could move $200 million to $300 million in tax burden from commercial to residential taxpayers. His data also suggests that the administration’s proposal to phase in the new system over three years -- doing something known as "smoothing -- might actually create more pain than relief for many taxpayers.
A key issue here is how accurate are Green's numbers, which he said he has pulled from a variety of sources, including the Nutter administration's budget testimony and data from the Board of Revision of Taxes. The Nutter administration last week said they were reviewing their data to see if Green's projections were right. We've reached out to them again and will update if they have anything further to say today.
Green has proposed several ways to lessen the blow to homeowners. Instead of collecting an additional $94 million through AVI, he’d like to double a business tax called the Use and Occupancy Tax — which applies only to commercial and industrial property owners. Green also wants to get rid of the plan for “smoothing” in the new bills over three years, because he fears it could actually have a negative impact for many homeowners.
If you go to Green’s website you can access a very complicated calculator that tries to assess the impact of AVI on residential and commercial tax bills. He factors in smoothing, homestead exemptions at a variety of levels and looks at the overall residential and commercial impact.
How about "no tax increase," Bill Green? It's morally corrupt to DOUBLE the U&O business tax. How about spending less? You want to be mayor? Then please live within your means and don't raise any tax.— featherman- Thank goodness Bill Green is providing citizens with a tool to estimate the impact of the Mayor's tax proposal. I have a small store and my taxes are going down according to the estimator. Perhaps featherman should put in properties and see the impact before generalizing.— Frankly
- John Featherman lost to Karen Brown. Enough said.— Michael T. Welsh
- Nice link. Maybe green's staff can teach the sherriffs office to use computers. And put up a website.
Then we could auction tax delinquent properties. Fund schools and not raise taxes.
— samac
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David Gambacorta spent a small eternity writing about cops, drug dealers and serial killers. Now he’s writing about power and politics – which sometimes reminds him of the old crime beat. He joined the Daily News in 2005. And yes, he knows you’re not quite sure how to pronounce his last name. E-mail tips to gambacd@phillynews.com
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Jan Ransom, a native New Yorker, joined the Daily News in 2010 after graduating from Howard University. She has since written about the difficulty of filing police complaints, tax deadbeats and life after violent home invasions. She joined the Daily News City Hall Bureau in 2011 and has plunged headfirst into reporting on administration budget battles and City Council shenanigans. E-mail tips to ransomj@phillynews.com
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Sean Collins Walsh is from Bucks County and went to Northwestern University. He joined the Daily News copy desk in 2012 and now covers the Nutter administration. Before that, he interned at papers including The New York Times, The Dallas Morning News and The Seattle Times. E-mail tips to walshSE@phillynews.com
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