TaxGirl: The Problem With Philly's Tax Amnesty

By PW Staff
Add Comment Add Comment | Comments: 0 | Posted Dec. 14, 2009

TaxGirl says that Philly's tax amnesty won't work if there's not accompanying reform of the system. And it shouldn't be picking on the little people:

One thing that the city is doing is pursuing collections matters very aggressively. I’ve probably gotten more city tax related phone calls at my office in the last month than in the entirety of my career. And I don’t mean that in a good way. They are mostly low-dollar matters, with penalty and interest generally exceeding the amount of tax due.

You’d think they’d do better to try and collect from the bigger fish. According to the City’s own web site, “business tax delinquents owe the City more than $53.3 million in outstanding judgments.” The top ten on the list each owe more than $1 million. You can see the list here (downloads as a pdf).

Community Legal Services would like to see the final amnesty bill include unpaid water bills. That provision has not yet been included; one would hope that if such a provision were included, it would be limited to low-income residents. There’s no point in giving many of the existing slumlords in Philadelphia a free pass; it’s bad enough that many don’t pay their taxes.

Read the whole thing at TaxGirl.com.

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