At the same time that a Pennsylvania Commonwealth Court judge ordered the state’s Tax Equalization Board (STEB) to recalculate, downward, the common level ratio (CLR) used in property assessment appeals hearings for 2022, a pair of state legislators plan to put forth legislation to offer tax relief to a select group of property owners.
But as procedural and altruistic as these respective actions might be, they continue to represent a tone deafness to the real issue – fealty to the state Constitution.
It appears now that STEB will, per the court, recalculate the CLR to be 63.53 percent in a long-running case that has more weeds to it than a country field not brush-hogged for a decade.
Lawsuit after lawsuit, appeal after appeal, posturing after posturing. And all because Allegheny County has steadfastly refused to formally reassess property values for a decade.
The result has been a grossly inequitable property taxation system with comparable properties paying wildly different taxes. And then there’s the specter of more established tony properties being woefully underassessed and properties in less-affluent neighborhoods being decidedly overassessed.
Constitutionally prescribed uniform taxation it is not and has not been for years.
Meanwhile, back in Harrisburg, state Rep. Robert Freeman, D-Northampton, and state Sen. Jimmy Dillon, D-Philadelphia, would, as Capitolwire.com reported it, “call for a change to the state Constitution to allow for the implementation of a circuit breaker on property tax. Constitutional change ballot questions must be approved by lawmakers in two consecutive legislative sessions.”
Enabling legislation that would be passed by the General Assembly if voters approved that constitutional change would define how that tax relief would be delivered, Freeman told the news outlet, possibly in the form of tax credit factored into their state income taxes.
Dillon told Capitolwire that such a “circuit breaker” would deliver “desperately needed relief” for low-income homeowners and help address the problem of housing affordability.
“A property tax circuit breaker will help stabilize neighborhoods and communities across the commonwealth. By reducing the tax burden, more Pennsylvanians can purchase and maintain family homes,” he said.
So, too, would regular reassessments. But, sans those regular reassessments, the “circuit breaker” no doubt would only short-circuit the assessment process further and create new inequities.
Again, what’s continually lost in all these court actions and now in this legislative proposal is that too many counties have been thumbing their noses at the state Constitution for far too long. So, too, has the Legislature.
While the property tax system may not be the best way for government jurisdictions, primarily public-school districts, to raise money, it is the system that we now have. But allowing inequities to grow by not conducting regular reassessments is a reckless disregard for the public weal and, of course, the rule of law.
Simply put, any judges involved in the Allegheny County mess should have gone beyond the specifics of each case before them, refused to only have nibbled around the edges and declared the mess what it is – unconstitutional – and ordered an immediate and full reassessment and regular reassessments thereafter.
And instead of also nibbling around the edges, Rep. Freeman and Sen. Dillon should be making plans to introduce legislation mandating regular property reassessment, every three years, on a statewide basis.
The failure of the Legislature and the judiciary – not to forget too many counties – to use the tools they have to fix the assessments problem is the epitome of sound public policy dereliction.
Taxpayers should not be paying for such steadfast inaction.
Colin McNickle is communications and marketing director at the Allegheny Institute for Public Policy (cmcnickle@alleghenyinstitute.org).
