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Wednesday, April 29, 2009
Tax board releases new property tax plan

They're here!

The much-anticipated but long-delayed actual market values proposed for residential and commercial properties citywide are being released this afternoon by the Board of Revision of Taxes. They are being shared with Mayor Nutter and City Council.

Here's the press release:

Committed to state-of-the-art valuation that will provide accurate, equitable and uniform property assessments across every Philadelphia neighborhood, the Board of Revision of Taxes today submitted to Mayor Nutter and City Council the proposed actual market values for more than 577,000 residential and commercial properties citywide.
 
For the first time in the modern history of the City, property values in Philadelphia would be based on actual market value – that is, based on a property’s projected worth on the open market. The new values, developed by the BRT following months of data collection and analysis of all 577,780 residential and commercial properties in the city, and completed with the assistance of recognized independent local property tax experts, mark a major next step in the development of a fairer and more uniform property tax system in Philadelphia. BRT officials noted that to date there is no plan to use these numbers as the basis for FY2010 property taxes in Philadelphia.
 
“We believe that these new values meet the national standards for accuracy, equity, and uniformity in property valuation,” said Kevin Keene, the BRT Assistant Administrator who spearheaded the project for the agency.    
 
“Our analysis indicates that these values have made substantial improvements towards greater accuracy, equity, and uniformity,” said Dr. Kevin C. Gillen, a leading local property tax expert from Econsult Corp., hired by the BRT to review the new values, which were developed as part of BRT’s “Actual Value Initiative” that began more than three years ago.
 
“I've assisted the BRT in creating statistical models that will help the BRT develop current accurate values for properties across all geographical areas of the city,” added Dr. Forrest E. Huffman, Professor of Real Estate and Finance at Temple University’s Fox School of Business, who also assisted on the project. “We're pretty pleased with the results so far. However, everyone should recognize that these models will require periodic updating and refinement as markets change.”
 
The proposed new values – the first ever to be developed with the help of the City’s new, $4.4 million Computerized Mass Appraisal system (known as the CAMA system) – were submitted to allow Mayor Nutter and Council members a first opportunity to review the data. BRT anticipates making the new values available for public review in the coming weeks, once the Nutter Administration and Council members have an opportunity to review them, so that citizens can offer comment and ask questions about the values.
 
“We have taken the time to develop property values that will be easier to understand, fairer, and more uniform than ever before,” said BRT Chairwoman Charlesretta Meade. “We hired outside experts to work with us in developing the values, and we are very encouraged by the hard work that has been done by our BRT staff and the experts to assure their accuracy.
 
"The entire focus of the BRT is to set accurate, fair, and uniform values,” Meade said. “That is all we do. We do not set tax rates or develop tax policy. Our job is to set values for all commercial and residential properties in the city as fairly, accurately and uniformly as possible, and we believe that the Actual Value Initiative will achieve this goal.”
 
BRT has said publicly that it anticipates working with the Mayor and Council to implement the Actual Value Initiative after the passage of legislation aimed at providing “buffers” or a phase-in period to ameliorate possible spikes in valuation across various city neighborhoods.
 
“We intend to work cooperatively with the Mayor, City Council, and our state legislative leaders to assure that the Actual Value Initiative is implemented with full public input on these important issues,” Meade said. “Just as we have said with respect to the development of these values, the idea is to get it right.”

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Posted by Marcia Gelbart @ 2:30 PM  Permalink | 24 comments
Comments   
Posted 02:56 PM, 04/29/2009
Politburo
Hopefully the public review will include an online searchable database. That way we can verify that no one is getting an unusual valuation.
Posted 03:05 PM, 04/29/2009
democratsruinedthecity
who cares...no one pays them anyway.
Posted 03:14 PM, 04/29/2009
gtown_teach
So when will the deadbeats pay up? Oh, and all the yuppies should start paying their fair share too.
Comment removed.
Posted 03:34 PM, 04/29/2009
gogglespaisano
make sure the people at the BRT have a fair valuation of their properties - i know a few of them that have some of the lowest valuations of their block...check out the 700 block of federal street - and see joe russo - he works at the BRT
Posted 03:40 PM, 04/29/2009
gargom
When will the 10 year tax abatement be abolished? I'm tired of paying rich people's taxes.
Posted 03:51 PM, 04/29/2009
DonQ
Who in his sane mind is going to believe that the BRT has the capability to post the market value of every property within the confines of Philadelphia? There are blocks where no city employee of any kind (other than policemen) have set foot on in years.
Posted 04:14 PM, 04/29/2009
The_Unknown-Poster
Two double digit percentage tax increases AND maybe full market value? Sound the death knell for Philadelphia. I see masses of people moving out.
Comment removed.
Posted 04:27 PM, 04/29/2009
Earl J
Common sense finally wins out over political foot draging.
Posted 04:45 PM, 04/29/2009
westbrookmvp
Tango - Take your race/political card elsewhere please.
Posted 04:47 PM, 04/29/2009
Mike S.
Hey Tango, your "moron-in-chief" spent more money in under 100 days than was spent after 9/11, Iraq and Afghanistan, so if you want to say who ruined it it would be the DEMOCRAP controlled Congress and Senate and the arrogant socialist/marxist snob residing in the whitehouse.... And you think things are bad now, wait till the inflation really hits from these spendthrift policies..... Go have some more Kool-aid comrade....
Posted 04:52 PM, 04/29/2009
CleanupPhilly
The press release leaves out that AVI will make Philly property tax assessments legal -- compliant with state law on assessments being based on some objective, independent criteria. You don't need an assessor to "eyeball" the house, you only have to look at comparative sales data that is independently compiled by the real estate industry. That's what CAMA incorporates. So we can do a re-assessment on a property once a year, that captures the property's increase or decrease in average comparative sales values on houses of that size.
Posted 04:54 PM, 04/29/2009
CleanupPhilly
AVI is more fair, more objective, and not as subject to political manipulation and local dirty favor giving than the current system. It's an important reform that removes one vote for me gimmick that helps to explain the low caliber of local Philly pols. Politicians have to earn votes the honest way if they can't "reward" supporters with lower than average assessments.
Posted 05:01 PM, 04/29/2009
CleanupPhilly
We need a way to be able to plug in data, not just one house at a time, but a whole block or street, and be able to see the list of assessments.
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The Philadelphia Inquirer's Jeff Shields, Marcia Gelbart, and Patrick Kerkstra take you inside Philadelphia's City Hall.
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