Councilman Posts Spreadsheet Showing Impact Of Mayor's Tax Plan On Residents
By Mike Dunn
PHILADELPHIA (CBS) - A city councilman who is battling the mayor over how to overhaul the property tax system is offering residents a spreadsheet to show how they may be affected by the potential changes.
Councilman Bill Green contends that the mayor's plan will shift a greater portion of the property tax burden to residential owners and away from commercial property owners.
His election website GreenForPhiladelphia.com has a downloadable spreadsheet that he says bears this out.
"The administration is asking us to make an uninformed choice about what to do with people's property taxes. And so all I've done is try to put some reasonable bounds on the choices that they're asking us to make."
READ: Complete CBS Philly coverage of Mayor Nutter's Actual Value Initiative
Finance Director Rob Dubow says the possibility that residential owners could bear the brunt of this change was known, "So I don't think that this is a new revelation. The councilman, though, has put in a proposal, and we think that it's worth talking about."
Green's proposal would make the new property tax system, dubbed AVI, revenue neutral. Green says the $94 million needed by the school district would be raised by boosting a different tax entirely -- the Use and Occupancy Tax -- one that hits only commercial property owners.
Council's theoretical deadline for first approval of a new budget comes later this week, though that is likely to be missed.
