Philadelphia AVI - Crosstown Coalition of Taxpayers Report

The Crosstown Coalition of Taxpayers has released a report finding that the Actual Valuation is a flawed initiative.

As a result of the efforts of the Coalition and the Controller's Office the city council has decided to audit the AVI for accuracy.

The findings of the Coalition's report are mostly similar to that of the Controller's office - which isn't surprising as they used the same data.

It is likely that the Office of Property Assessment will soon release its full data set - allowing for a direct comparison between its results which contradict those of the Controller's office and Coalition.

Some of this report's findings include:
-Discrimination: "Expensive homes and large commercial buildings are under assessed. Less expensive homes are over assessed."

-Inaccuracy: assessments are several times more inaccurate than the OPA claims (and grossly exceed the industry standard)

-Abated properties have their land under-assessed which leads to lower taxes as the improvements are abated, but the land is taxed.

-Large commercial buildings are under-valued (based on a 6% or 7% rate of investment return -- which is the market rate).

-Single family homes were over assessed compared to multi-family homes in the same area.