PHILADELPHIA | Lowrise/General Developments Thread

[cardeza]

Originally Posted by blorkishdork

Can someone explain why Darrel Clark and Co. opposes the change to the uniformity clause? It just seems like a no-brainer, but they have to have a reason, even if I don't agree or understand it.

it doesnt matter what he thought- the state had the final say and they didnt advance this to the step where it would have become an amendment to constitution. We can't blame every ill on Clarke- sorry.

[cardeza]

Originally Posted by ScreamShatter

Ever so slight modification. Philly passed sugar tax and rolled back the tax abatements. Philly has also increased tax intake (but not rate) by adjusting home and land values. Also, federal government changed tax code to limit city taxes that can be deducted from federal. So people have experienced tax increases in different shapes and forms.

Your points are well taken though. The tax rates have been generally going down, but Philly is finding ways to still collect more wherever they can through other means.

home and land values increase- no government entity reduces millage rates to maintain constant revenue from real estate tax. Are you saying the City government is at fault if a homeowners RE tax increases in alignment with the value? Higher real estate values do generally lead to larger tax bills- I don't think that is just a Philly thing. Rendell was mayor from 92-2000 and he started the tax cuts- so in reality some taxes have been reduced for close to 30 years. It is true that other fees and levies have arisen such as a soda tax, but that is based on cnosumption and is avoidable if one chooses to do so.

[cardeza]

Originally Posted by PHLtoNYC

Even Center City still has too many for my liking. They're parking lots, but same thing IMO.

Also a smarter economic decision for additional revenue vs. the "wealth tax".

A land value tax may help with accelerating turnover of vacant or underutilized lots but that isnt the same as generating lots of new revenue. Even if you argue that more revenue would be a side effect of such a policy that would come incrementally as new buildings come on line and get assessed, it's not a quick bump to the revenue stream.

I do think its funny when people go on tirades about taxes without proposing how the revenue would be replaced if you drastically cut any of the key tax rates. Ah let me guess, efficiencies will take care of everything.

[mja]

Originally Posted by allovertown

I don't think it's semantics. I think everyone should be clear on why we're here. Philly's tax burden, or even more specifically, it's tax structure, holds this city back, but it is not the cause of this city's ills. And fixing the tax structure isn't going to eradicate poverty or anything close.

It's fine to oppose the wealth tax, which is not a good tax to implement. But acting like taxes are the cause of all of Philadelphia's ills is just incorrect and I want to call it out as such because unless there is some major state and federal policy shifts, Philly can't just do sit around and wait for the federal government to fix their problems. Philadelphia has to be proactive, and while something like the wage needs to go down, other types of tax increases should be on the table. Taxes aren't the bogeyman. There are good taxes that can be implemented that will help the city.

Again, much of this is very much in line with what everyone here thinks, down to increasing some taxes to incentivize development, which was espoused mere posts before yours here by the very same people you tend to get combative with.

[ScreamShatter]

Originally Posted by cardeza

home and land values increase- no government entity reduces millage rates to maintain constant revenue from real estate tax. Are you saying the City government is at fault if a homeowners RE tax increases in alignment with the value? Higher real estate values do generally lead to larger tax bills- I don't think that is just a Philly thing. Rendell was mayor from 92-2000 and he started the tax cuts- so in reality some taxes have been reduced for close to 30 years. It is true that other fees and levies have arisen such as a soda tax, but that is based on cnosumption and is avoidable if one chooses to do so.

I’m not pointing fingers or assigning fault. What I am saying is that as a result of the way Phillys government conducted that reassignment of property values, it lead to a significant tax payout for many residents. And at the same time, Philly cut abatements added consumption taxes and the federal government changed tax code to reduce the local deductions.

All of this, collectively, means people are paying a higher % of their income to taxes. And that’s before factoring inflation pains.

[iheartphilly]

^
Serious question: what are we getting with all these sorts of increase taxes?

[PHL10]

Originally Posted by ScreamShatter

I’m not pointing fingers or assigning fault. What I am saying is that as a result of the way Phillys government conducted that reassignment of property values, it lead to a significant tax payout for many residents. And at the same time, Philly cut abatements added consumption taxes and the federal government changed tax code to reduce the local deductions.

All of this, collectively, means people are paying a higher % of their income to taxes. And that’s before factoring inflation pains.

Yep, I got hit pretty hard by the above myself.

[3rd&Brown]

Originally Posted by cardeza

home and land values increase- no government entity reduces millage rates to maintain constant revenue from real estate tax. Are you saying the City government is at fault if a homeowners RE tax increases in alignment with the value? Higher real estate values do generally lead to larger tax bills- I don't think that is just a Philly thing. Rendell was mayor from 92-2000 and he started the tax cuts- so in reality some taxes have been reduced for close to 30 years. It is true that other fees and levies have arisen such as a soda tax, but that is based on cnosumption and is avoidable if one chooses to do so.

Municipalities all over PA reduce millage to maintain constant revenue.

You can't just arbitrarily continue increasing taxes because values go up. The market is beyond most people's control. The assessment and millage process should be separated. I'm totally okay if the city wanted to update assessments every single year. But it shouldn't automatically lead to an increase in RE taxes for an individual owner. If your neighbors house went up in value more than yours, your tax bill should go down and theirs up. If the city needed to raise more revenue, it should have a separate process for determining the millage.

Delaware County just did a county wide reassessment and even though everyone's assessment changed. the millages were re-calibrated to make sure the overall revenue was neutral. If a municipality wants to raise overall revenue, it goes through a separate process ask for a millage increase.

They're completely separate. If they're not in Philadelphia, they should be.

[Insoluble]

Originally Posted by mja

Again, much of this is very much in line with what everyone here thinks, down to increasing some taxes to incentivize development, which was espoused mere posts before yours here by the very same people you tend to get combative with.

Nope. There's a big difference between Allovertown's nuanced posts explaining the major causes of the city's decline decades ago and offering suggestions of how trac reform could be one small piece of addressing the city's problems and

"Philadelphia has taxed itself into being one of the poorest cities in the nation."

Not understanding how comically wrong and over simplistic that second position is honestly amazes me. You can oppose stupid and unnecessary tax increases without pretending that it will be some sort of panacea.

[Frontst17]

Originally Posted by Insoluble

Nope. There's a big difference between Allovertown's nuanced posts explaining the major causes of the city's decline decades ago and offering suggestions of how trac reform could be one small piece of addressing the city's problems and

"Philadelphia has taxed itself into being one of the poorest cities in the nation."

Not understanding how comically wrong and over simplistic that second position is honestly amazes me. You can oppose stupid and unnecessary tax increases without pretending that it will be some sort of panacea.

Preach

[summersm343]

Guys… geez. Why are we still arguing over this? You guys are really reading into one line WAY too deeply. I don’t think anybody truly believes that Philadelphia got into this position by taxes that the city implemented… there are obviously many, many factors that contributed including de-industrialization, suburbanization, so on and so forth.

The reality is though that current taxes, primarily businesses taxes, are holding the city back and are preventing job growth. One has to look no further than City Avenue where all the businesses and companies are located just across Philadelphia’s borders in Bala Cynwyd. The wage tax certainly doesn’t help either with attracting residents.

I’m not sure who could disagree that Philadelphia needs to revamp its tax structure. I’m not sure what the argument is about.

[mja]

Originally Posted by Insoluble

Nope. There's a big difference between Allovertown's nuanced posts explaining the major causes of the city's decline decades ago and offering suggestions of how trac reform could be one small piece of addressing the city's problems and

"Philadelphia has taxed itself into being one of the poorest cities in the nation."

Not understanding how comically wrong and over simplistic that second position is honestly amazes me. You can oppose stupid and unnecessary tax increases without pretending that it will be some sort of panacea.

No one was suggesting that taxation initiated Philadelphia's decline. His posts just mostly cover well-trodden ground almost universally accepted as fact.

[cardeza]

https://www.inquirer.com/opinion/editorials/mayor-jim-kenney-philadelphia-budget-20220331.html

lame duck budget from lame duck mayor. Pathetic.

[cardeza]

Originally Posted by 3rd&Brown

Municipalities all over PA reduce millage to maintain constant revenue.

You can't just arbitrarily continue increasing taxes because values go up. The market is beyond most people's control. The assessment and millage process should be separated. I'm totally okay if the city wanted to update assessments every single year. But it shouldn't automatically lead to an increase in RE taxes for an individual owner. If your neighbors house went up in value more than yours, your tax bill should go down and theirs up. If the city needed to raise more revenue, it should have a separate process for determining the millage.

Delaware County just did a county wide reassessment and even though everyone's assessment changed. the millages were re-calibrated to make sure the overall revenue was neutral. If a municipality wants to raise overall revenue, it goes through a separate process ask for a millage increase.

They're completely separate. If they're not in Philadelphia, they should be.

You are saying with a straight face that in the suburbs tax bills stay constant because the millage rate drops in conjunction with valuation increases? Are you being serious? Have you talked to any people who live in the suburbs about the overall trajectory of their real estate and school tax bills over the decades? When major reassessment efforts are done they may say it needs to be revenue nuetral, but the City's intent here (although much delayed) is to have an assessment system that stays relatively current and accurate to avoid huge jumps from once a decade assessments or whatever. Delco is one of the worst in terms of keeping assessment up to date from what Ive heard and many homes are wildly undervalued.

[PHLtoNYC]

Originally Posted by cardeza

https://www.inquirer.com/opinion/editorials/mayor-jim-kenney-philadelphia-budget-20220331.html

lame duck budget from lame duck mayor. Pathetic.

Budget related, I was not aware of the situation with the city libraries. A huge city with 23% poverty and generally underperforming public schools needs a strong and accessible library system.

The library budget is ~$43M, ~1% of the yearly city budget. Maybe I'm naïve, but why aren't large companies (or Penn) donating a few million a year to fill in budget gaps? Seems like a drop in the bucket for multi-billion organizations and would fulfill a donation quota. Maybe they already are, but still not sufficient?
I know a reliance on Penn and asking companies to fill budget gaps is not ideal, but it's a worthwhile philanthropic effort for organizations that can afford it.

About 1 in 7 Philly neighborhood libraries can’t fully open each day, on top of already reduced hours

https://billypenn.com/2022/03/31/free-li...Is2-vg5WIvmX1QanMM_tNpusgXYr8K9rdU3U9sic

[iheartphilly]

Originally Posted by cardeza

You are saying with a straight face that in the suburbs tax bills stay constant because the millage rate drops in conjunction with valuation increases? Are you being serious? Have you talked to any people who live in the suburbs about the overall trajectory of their real estate and school tax bills over the decades? When major reassessment efforts are done they may say it needs to be revenue nuetral, but the City's intent here (although much delayed) is to have an assessment system that stays relatively current and accurate to avoid huge jumps from once a decade assessments or whatever. Delco is one of the worst in terms of keeping assessment up to date from what Ive heard and many homes are wildly undervalued.

Right. There was no doubt some homeowners were overpaying and others underpaying. And inadvertently, this was to capture people that put additions or other structures on their home but was not permitted on record and they never paid for an increase in square footage. It also capture under-assessment based on market conditions and values based on a specify timeframe. It is still an imperfect system as many people appeal to lower their taxes after the reassessment. Further, the assessment are not uniformed by any means. A neighbor was a 3 car garage and more square footage home is valued lower than in the same street a home with 2 car garage and less square footage. The net neutrality in property tax was meant for homeowners on the basis that his/her property taxes shouldn't go up if it was correctly assessed in the first place and these were home that were built in the last 10 years. Anything older would of saw an increase in property taxes the majority of time.

[iamrobk]

This is an extremely dumb question (and honestly not super relevant to anything in particular), but as someone who isn't familiar with the suburban counties property taxes, do they lower the millage rate to account for increased property valuations when they do county-wide reassessments?

[iheartphilly]

Originally Posted by iamrobk

This is an extremely dumb question (and honestly not super relevant to anything in particular), but as someone who isn't familiar with the suburban counties property taxes, do they lower the millage rate to account for increased property valuations when they do county-wide reassessments?

Yep that's what they did. Made the value of your home to include structure and land-basically what you would list it for based on comps in the area if you were to sell it. The old way of assessing was just the value of the structure but a higher millage. For most, it's a wash if your home was fairly new (10 yrs or less), but older homes got a valuation bump when comps were added to the equation multiplied by the new millage rate that increase their property taxes.

[3rd&Brown]

Originally Posted by cardeza

You are saying with a straight face that in the suburbs tax bills stay constant because the millage rate drops in conjunction with valuation increases? Are you being serious? Have you talked to any people who live in the suburbs about the overall trajectory of their real estate and school tax bills over the decades? When major reassessment efforts are done they may say it needs to be revenue nuetral, but the City's intent here (although much delayed) is to have an assessment system that stays relatively current and accurate to avoid huge jumps from once a decade assessments or whatever. Delco is one of the worst in terms of keeping assessment up to date from what Ive heard and many homes are wildly undervalued.

Straightest face you've ever seen. The suburbs raise taxes with millage increases, not reassessments. When they conduct reassessments the formula is that total collections stay the same when the reassessment happens and everyone's tax bill within a given municipality is then recalculated.

You do understand the difference between an assessment and a tax bill?

The system you describe where you just continually raise taxes and millage is a surefire way to make sure you displace all those elderly and poor people I assume you care about not displacing. The ONLY fair way to reassess is to reassess everyone at the same time, recalculate everyone's taxes at the current collection total for the municipality, then reset the bar. Only then if you need more revenue, you do it by increasing the millage. That way the process is super transparent.

In the current environment, values can go up 20 or 30% in a year. The city has nothing to do with that. Do you honestly believe the city is entitled to collect 20% more in RE taxes in a given year simply because home values went up in its jurisdiction?

[3rd&Brown]

Originally Posted by iamrobk

This is an extremely dumb question (and honestly not super relevant to anything in particular), but as someone who isn't familiar with the suburban counties property taxes, do they lower the millage rate to account for increased property valuations when they do county-wide reassessments?

Yes. Not a dumb question at all.