Philadelphia CLR Rate Changing?
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Pennsylvania's Real Estate Assessment Climate
By Paul Shoup
Things may seem quiet for Harrisburg, the capital city of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, right now, but on the east and west, the City of Philadelphia and Allegheny County are in a virtual assessment quagmire. And it seems likely that the mess may works its way to the center where legislators must certainly be taking notice and where they may be required to take action.
To the west, Allegheny County is currently in the process of "informal reviews" of its 2013 assessments resulting from a court ordered re-assessment of the entire county. Initially ordered to implement the values in 2012, the re-assessment will now go into effect in 2013. County executives fought the court ordered re-assessment and the county web-site still posts links to "Fight the Fight Against the Court Ordered Re-Assessment".
Residential and commercial property owners have come out in droves to contest the new 2013 values and will likely continue the appeal processes to the formal appeal and, perhaps, court levels.
To the east, the City of Philadelphia is still trying to figure out what common level ratio to use for the 2012 tax year providing the basis for equalization of assessment value to market value. In the most recent development, the City had a hearing on March 23rd in Harrisburg with the State Tax Equalization Board (STEB) to contest the 18.1% ratio that STEB issued in August 2011. STEB had developed the ratio based on property sales data the City had sent for use in the calculations. The City is espousing the idea that it should not be held to the same ratio calculation methodology as the other 67 counties in Pennsylvania in part because of a city ordinance that it contends skews the ratio, assessments and implied market values.
No decision was made at the March 23rd hearing and the City has 2,000+ appeals awaiting some resolution for 2012 and, further, is looking to implement a re-assessment of its own in the future.
At issue in both Allegheny County (home to the City of Pittsburgh) and the City of Philadelphia are millions of dollars in tax revenue. Also, at issue and perhaps the crux of the matter is a failed assessment process that is adversely impacting counties, school districts, municipalities and tax payers.Paul Shoup is a Principal at Valuation and Consulting Services, LLC in Devon Pa.