Home Delivery

Feb 23, 10:40 AM | Traffic

Search for :

South Jersey news - Mob Scene - Jobs

options

Posted: Thu, Jan. 26, 2012, 5:52 AM

No way to find out now about Philly property tax bill

By Troy Graham

Inquirer Staff Writer

STEVEN M. FALK / Staff Photographer, file

"We're going to be asked to do a tax prior to knowing . . . what the value of all the land is. That has some practical problems with it," said Councilman Bill Green. "That essentially means we are putting in place a new tax without having a true public debate on the issue. ..."

Post a comment

Who's joining Clarke's crew?
In the dark on Darrell Clarke?
DROP-ing in on Council's 6 new members

Philly police now have 24-hour real-time surveillance center
Tenant vs landlord
Teen-misbehavior video gets a smack down
Flag veto comes back at Christie
Pa. likes Santorum, but Obama even more

Would you like to know how much you're going to pay in property taxes before City Council passes a budget that depends largely on what it expects to collect from each property owner?

Well, too bad. Not going to happen.

Philadelphia is in the midst of its Actual Value Initiative (AVI), part of an endeavor to fix a historically inequitable tax system based on decades of bad and incomplete assessments. Assessors have fanned across the city in an attempt to tag each property with its market - actual - value.

But the job won't be done until at least September, and the new City Council, which convenes its first regular meeting Thursday, must pass a budget and set a millage rate - the property tax rate - before the start of the fiscal year July 1.

AVI would figure to be a daunting challenge for any Council, but the 2012 version comes before a Council with six freshman members and a new leadership team.

The city is also coming off several lean years marked by cutting services and raising taxes in often-bruising budget fights.

The six new members - Democrats Cindy Bass, Bobby Henon, Kenyatta Johnson, and Mark Squilla, and Republicans Dennis O'Brien and David Oh - are likely to establish themselves and their legislative priorities in the early months.

Meanwhile, the Democratic leadership - particularly new President Darrell L. Clarke - will try to build coalitions of at least nine votes for its own package of revenue-generating ideas.

Clarke has a seven-point plan that includes previously floated ideas to sell advertising space on public property and to create development districts to sell off blighted property.

The leadership also plans to explore selling certain city assets.

"We have $80 million plus of surplus real estate that we should at least hang a shingle on and see what we get," said new Majority Leader Curtis Jones Jr. "We're missing valuable revenue opportunities that I think we need to look at now."

No idea seems to be off the table. New Majority Whip Blondell Reynolds Brown plans to introduce a bill Thursday that will allow bars to stay open until 3 a.m. - and dedicate the extra hour's worth of liquor tax collection to benefit the city's schools.

While the next five months should be all about the money, AVI promises to be the most divisive issue, since the reassessments will effect every neighborhood and councilmanic district differently.

Many people will see their taxes stay the same or drop, but residents in areas that have experienced huge gains in value - Graduate Hospital, Northern Liberties, parts of South Philadelphia - should expect large increases.

Squilla represents the First District, encompassing half of Center City and running along the river from South Philadelphia to Port Richmond. His area may be the hardest hit.

"Some people will say, 'That's fair, I knew I was paying less.' Some people will say, 'I can't afford to do this, you're going to make me move out of the city,'" Squilla said. "We're going to take a beating early on for this."

He said he would push for the kind of measures that could blunt the impact on people facing large increases, such as homestead exemptions for the elderly.

Council also seems poised to explore the capping and phasing-in of large tax hikes. Some of these measures will require permission from Harrisburg, never an easy request.

Two unknowns are how much money the city expects to collect and how Council will set the millage rate.

Several Council members said the most likely approach is to determine a revenue goal and then pass a formulaic millage rate where the actual number is an unknown. In the fall, when the assessments are completed, the millage rate could be plugged in to hit that revenue goal.

City Finance Director Rob Dubow would only say that the process of setting the millage is "an issue we need to work out with Council."

"What we want to make sure happens is that people have a tax bill that's accurate and understandable," he said. "By the time people have their bills, they'll understand what they're paying and why."

The tax bill goes out at the end of the year.

Council could wait until next year to institute AVI, once the assessments are complete and residents and businesses know how they will be impacted.

Page: 1 of 2 View All

1 | 2 Next»

Comments

Comment removed.

0 like this / 0 don't • Posted 8:09 AM, 01/27/2012

Well, I know many people in the above listed neighborhoods who are paying very little in property taxes. I am one of them. We live in a house that was purchased for 320k and our property tax rate is $700 a year.

— Kcrul147

0 like this / 0 don't • Posted 6:20 AM, 01/26/2012

The only thing we know for certain are the tax-payers will get shafted while the tax-consumers get more "free" money, "free" social programs, "free" city services and god knows what else. Under the old BRT plan people on my block were supposed to get property tax reductions of about $400 per year. I doubt that will be the case with the Democrat led assault on the Philly tax-payers.

— psyrus

0 like this / 0 don't • Posted 6:22 AM, 01/26/2012

How about collecting all those back taxes while you're at it?

— verve

0 like this / 0 don't • Posted 9:04 AM, 01/26/2012

Nutter put in a moratorium on collecting property taxes, along with the moratorium on sheriff sales for mortgage foreclosure.

Why were the two lumped together? This made cutting the wage tax impossible. The city needs a steady stream of revenue from property taxes, and this just decreased that revenue stream at a time when the city knew that less money was going to be coming in from the federal and state levels.

Sheriff sales have started again, but this administration has put too much weight on trying to save everyone who can't afford their situation from making changes that have to come.

There is an equation that for every dollar not collected in property taxes to "keep someone in their home" (a faulty piece of logic when so many houses are empty that owe taxes) then that dollar is taken out of the public schools.

The current school funding crisis is a direct result of the Democrats trying to preserve their voting base unchanged and to curry favors by not collecting property taxes.

This is the kind of corruption that the city can't survive for much longer. Even Street did a better job collecting property taxes than Nutter has.

— CleanupPhilly

0 like this / 0 don't • Posted 6:35 AM, 01/26/2012

Oh no.

— phillytwo

0 like this / 0 don't • Posted 6:35 AM, 01/26/2012

Only suckers pay taxes in this city. Not a penny more until the back taxes are collected. Those people arent paying their "fair share" so other people are paying more than theirs.

— tr88

0 like this / 0 don't • Posted 6:43 AM, 01/26/2012

Someone should remind the morons on city concil that the higher they tax, the less taxes they'll get. Home buyers and home owners and those on fixed incomes are tired of supporting the professional takers in this city.

— crystalrainbowspirit1

0 like this / 0 don't • Posted 6:49 AM, 01/26/2012

The more you tax the less you'll get. How many more empty houses or olitical cronies should the tax payers be requiresd to subsidize? How many more people are you going to force out of the city?

— crystalrainbowspirit1

0 like this / 0 don't • Posted 6:56 AM, 01/26/2012

Hah, lyn_ beat me to it. Citizen's of Philly, please don't ask questions of our esteemed political class, just bend over and prepare yourselves.

— Frank Furter

0 like this / 0 don't • Posted 7:00 AM, 01/26/2012

Whatever happened to the lawsuit against the "temporary tax hike" (yeah right, we are not that stupid) for being illegal as it was based on improper or incorrect assessments? Would not this new tax actual value system be illegal if a millage rate is applied blindly and prior to actual property values being known. The only thing that is fair in this city is the weather occassionally.

— Steelmanpa

0 like this / 0 don't • Posted 8:42 AM, 01/26/2012

It was thrown out if you mean the lawsuit by Brett Mandel by Democratic judges who only get their jobs with the support of the party in elections. It wasn't appealed to a less biased higher court, but it probably could be.

The judge found that the property owners who paid badly out of whack assessments didn't have "standing" to sue the city for incorrect assessments on their own properties. Nope, no rigged political corruption there that contravenes the rule of law.

— CleanupPhilly

0 like this / 0 don't • Posted 7:14 AM, 01/26/2012

We need more democrats in the city, they are the best

— ignorantphillydem

0 like this / 0 don't • Posted 7:21 AM, 01/26/2012

such a joke, they wonder why philly hasn't grown - working professionals like me (late twenties) don't want to put up with this! as everyone has stated, taxes i pay cover the back taxes of delinquents (who can still afford their pre-paid cell phones, soda, chips, etc.)

— main liner

0 like this / 0 don't • Posted 7:31 AM, 01/26/2012

If they want more revenue, go after the traffic scofflaws, city workers who owe back taxes, business owners that owe back taxes, etc., before you hit me up again (a middle class taxpayer who pays their taxes on time) for an additional $200 or more.

— fozziebear