Reassessment delay blow to tax fairness
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share thisProperty taxation probably is the state's most persistent and most volatile political issue, yet politicians at the state and local levels can't seem to resolve it.
Although property taxation most often is discussed in terms of local property tax rates, especially for school districts, fairness is an equally important issue.
In Lackawanna County, the government's suspension of a badly needed countywide property reassessment is a severe blow to the cause of fair taxation.
The county has not had a comprehensive reassessment in about 40 years. Now, it has a convoluted system based on guesswork as much as on true property valuation. According to a 2006 analysis by the state Tax Equalization Board, the average property assessment error in the county was a whopping 47 percent. That means that a property that should be assessed at $10,000 could be assessed at $5,300 or $14,700 - 47 percent in either direction.
Homeowners with very similar properties in the same tax jurisdiction, in other words, often pay wildly divergent amounts of property tax. That's directly contrary to the fair and equitable taxation that is required by law and the state constitution.
Commissioners Mike Washo and Corey O'Brien have suspended the Lackawanna County reassessment process after three years for lack of up to $8 million that is needed to complete it.
Delaying the implementation is understandable, as a county budget matter, amid a particularly difficult economy.
The delay is a false economy, however, for many county residents who are forced to carry a larger share of the tax burden than they should, due to outdated assessments. And it maintains unwarranted massive tax breaks for some other property owners.
At the state level the government has committed to generally lowering property taxes, or slowing their growth, by committing most of the state's share of casino slots gambling revenue to school districts. The districts are required to use that revenue to replace property tax revenue.
Casino expansions into table games have been approved, but the Legislature has not yet finalized exactly how the state government's share of that revenue will be used.
In order to ensure not just lower school property taxes, but overall property tax fairness, the Legislature should dedicate a portion of the new revenue to helping counties fund regular reassessments.
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