Full Market Valuation Is Coming

The Board of Revision of Taxes is prepared to roll out the Full Market Valuation system for assessing real estate taxes in the city of Philadelphia.  The expected date for citizens to receive the new tax bill might be in 2010, with notices being sent out in 2009. 

A lot of work needs to be done first.  For one thing homestead exemptions and a cap and deferral plan, limiting tax increases to no more than 10 percent per year must be passed by City Council and signed by the mayor, thus limiting the "damage" of the new tax bill.

Full Market Valuations have been in the works since 2003 when the city's Tax Reform Commission sharply criticized the current assessment system, noting that it hurts the city's working-class homeowners. 

"Lower-priced properties are typically assessed at higher fractions of their value than higher priced properties. Thus, the assessment system results in a higher tax burden [in percentage terms] upon poorer households than upon more affluent households," the study asserted.

But by late 2006, the BRT decided to delay implementation of the system until after the 2007 election cycle.

More to come.