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Motion expressing the Sense of Council of Allegheny County urging the General Assembly to reform the real estate property tax and provide a Safe Harbor Alternative for counties from periodic countywide reassessments by permitting counties to adopt a state established schedule of values per square foot for designated land and improvement types in lieu of property assessments.
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WHEREAS, the process of conducting Countywide reassessments is burdensome to the taxpayers in the form of instability in the property tax assessments used by the County, municipality and school district in which they live; and
WHEREAS, the existing Countywide reassessment process is also burdensome to the various counties in the form of mandating periodic expenditures ranging into the tens of millions of dollars for reassessment data that may or may not be reliable; and
WHEREAS, counties throughout Pennsylvania had attempted to remedy these deleterious effects by establishing base year assessment systems without providing for periodic reassessments, a practice that was recently found to violate the Uniformity Clause of the Pennsylvania Constitution by the Pennsylvania Supreme Court; and
WHEREAS, the General Assembly has expressed a desire to reform the property tax system on numerous occasions; and
WHEREAS, it appears that the Uniformity Clause would not be violated if the Commonwealth were to create a safe harbor for counties from periodic countywide reassessments by adopting schedules for real property taxation that provide maximum per foot assessed values for properties and improvements thereto according to property usage (e.g. single family residential, commercial, industrial and agricultural) such that counties could opt out of periodic countywide reassessments by assessing their property at values up to the state per foot maximum valuation schedules; and
WHEREAS, if the Commonwealth also provides for a periodic increase in assessed values according to the per foot valuation schedules, counties, as well as other taxing bodies, could effectively grow their tax bases over time without subjecting their taxpayers to occasional major changes in assessed values; and
WHEREAS, such a maximum per foot valuation system would also permit competition among the counties for residents and business development by allowing for the adoption of per foot assessed values that do not exceed the state schedules, and would also act as an incentive to taxing bodies to be forthcoming about their millage rates in an effort to compete; and
WHEREAS, such a maximum per foot valuation system would permit a sound basis for all taxing bodies to adopt homestead and other exemptions;
NOW THEREFORE, IT IS MOVED, AND IT IS THE SENSE OF THE COUNCIL OF ALLEGHENY COUNTY, urging the General Assembly of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania to reform the real estate property tax and create a Safe Harbor Alternative from periodic countywide reassessments by permitting counties to adopt a state established schedule of maximum property values per square foot for designated land and improvement types in lieu of periodic property assessments. Such assessment reform should permit counties to assess properties at any value up to the maximum amount permitted by the state, should provide that the maximum per foot valuations can increase by up to five percent (5%) every five (5) years, and should specifically empower all taxing bodies to adopt homestead exemptions, whether they compile their own assessment rolls or rely on assessment rolls compiled by the county in which they are located.
PRIMARY SPONSOR: COUNCIL MEMBER McCULLOUGH