Ruling taxes city $ hopes

THE CITY'S Board of Revision of Taxes had good news yesterday for property owners - and, potentially, a ton of bad news for the cash-strapped city and school district.

The board ruled that a parking-lot owner, Race Street Parking Associates, should pay about $30,000 less in property taxes, based on new property-tax assessment figures set by the state last summer.

Big whoop, you say, and why is that even news?

The thing is, the parking-lot owner is among hundreds of property owners who appealed their property-tax bills last fall. The board began ruling on the appeals yesterday.

Translation: The city - and the school district - could find their ongoing budget woes getting even worse.

The Inquirer yesterday estimated that the city could lose out on as much as $80 million if the board makes the same ruling on other appeals.

For years, the city used a "fractional" system that assessed residential and commercial properties at 32 percent of their market value, and then applied a tax rate.

That fractional number is supposed to come close to matching the state-determined "common level ratio."

In July, the state Tax Equalization Board dropped the common level ratio to 18.1 percent. That's the figure the Board of Revision of Taxes applied yesterday to Race Street Parking Associates, and to the Goldenberg Group, which owns the former DisneyQuest site, at 8th and Market streets.

"Property owners don't want to pay more than their fair share," said Carl Primavera, an attorney for the Goldenberg Group. "It's less money for the city, but it's money they shouldn't have had, anyway."

The Nutter administration said it planned to appeal the rulings. Those decisions also could be rendered moot if the city follows through with a long-planned move to 100 percent valuations for properties that would also bring lower tax rates.