Philadelphia Making Up For Lost Time With Property Tax Assessments
PHILADELPHIA (CBS) - The opening day of City Council's review of Mayor Michael Nutter's new budget included questions about where Philadelphia is headed with property assessments. The answer: upward.
The nearly 10 percent property tax hike approved last year expires next year, so at the hearing, Councilman Bill Green questioned the mayor's finance director, Rob Dubow, about what happens then.
Dubow said by that point, the city will have completed a full reassessment of all properties, and that will likely reflect higher values.
"We're saying if you go to actual value and you get good assessments that we will actually capture the last decade of changes in values, and that will result in a 20-percent increase."
"20 percent?" Green asked.
"Yea," Dubow replied. "I know that the market's come down, but we really missed the run up in the market, too. So we're projecting that the net impact of the years we've missed is a substantial increase in values."
And that 20 percent increase in values could make it break even for the city when last year's tax hike gets rolled back, as planned.
Reported by Mike Dunn, KYW Newsradio
