FNA July Membership Meeting

Bump. This week. We talkin taxes people.

Latest update from the city. Bring your questions!

http://www.philly.com/philly/news/politics/city/20120713_Philly_plans_to_mail_tax-reassessment_results_in_February.html

BUMP. This is tonight. Come for homemade banana bread and tax talk.

I will be there :)

See you people at 6:30.

Can someone summarize what came out of Brett's presentation?

Great meeting! Thank you :)

He basically explained what AVI is, why it was delayed, and why it's needed.

You're welcome!

I think Brett was one of the best speakers we have had. His ability to explain the reasoning, the future and the potential situations in plain english was remarkable. We will definitely have him back.

I don't agree with his position but I liked him a lot as a speaker. Definitely did a great job breaking down all the tax stuff into plain English, and he was very engaging.

Maybe we should invite him to the next ORCA meeting.

What was his position? I had to duck out early, so I only heard the beginning of his talk about the history of it.

That this makes taxation fair, because the current system undervalues some homes substantially and other homes "just kinda".

Unfortunately, while that is true, this is going to hurt a lot of low income and fixed income individuals. His position is that is true, but this is necessary, although it will be painful.

My position is to wait until the economy picks up a little. Because this is going to result in people paying more money.

Whatever they do, I hope they don't just pick a random # to use as a threshold for what's considered a "long-time" homeowner or whatever (that's assuming they try to implement some kind of relief for long-term owners). For a while they were throwing around 10 years as that value -- not sure if that's still being considered. I hate it when there's an all-or-nothing threshold like that (same with the $250K mark that they talk about for fed taxes) instead of a gradual, tiered system. There's always going to be cut-points in any tiered system, but does someone who's owned their home for 9 years 363 days really not deserve *any* relief compared to someone who's owned for 10 years 1 day?

Very good point , they should or could implement a an increase by using actual sale prices on houses and if someone records a deed for less than market value it is subject to appraisal from the city ...lets some one scream hey my house ain't worth that and you got this , well why did you pay that for it then ?
also any house for a buck should be appraised period... way to many just not even paying minimum taxes as well..

Did he talk about the potential mitigations / phasing-in scenarios in any detail? The implementation is going to require some sort of mitigation, whether that's a 5-10 year phase-in, or capturing part of the tax increase as a lien, or something.

I don't really like the argument for waiting longer to fix this. The imbalance has been growing for more than 30 years, and every year you wait, it gets more unfair and more ingrained. The City needs to move ahead as soon as there's a plan to mitigate the shock as much as possible.

I like the idea of a phased approach. I think it would be helpful to explain the terms of the phases to people in plain English. As in, "Here is what you pay now. Here is what you need to pay. Your rate will go up by X% or points or whatever for the next X years in order to reach that value annually."

I believe it's detrimental to any neighborhood to hike tax all at once. Foreclosure and abandonment is a realistic outcome for those who already see their income is stretched, which doesn't seem fair. However, the current system doesn't sound fair so I don't have much of a leg on with my 'fairness' claim, but I am making it anyway.

That said, I also thought it was a great meeting. Brett was very easy to understand. I wish we had had more time for questions.

Noted :)

I think when Brett comes back we may shorten the length of the other business at the meeting and schedule an end time for 830. The issue is too complex to jam into 30-40 minutes.