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PGHxplant t1_j9r4g5j wrote

Closed in March 2020. My reassessment in '21 was fundamentally fair. Can we friggin' stop talking about this as exclusively an assessment issue?!? Until a few good candidates can also successfully communicate and explain the absurdity of our millage rates we're going to be eternally stuck in this crap. There IS a way to fairly fund our schools.

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ktxhopem3276 t1_j9rwhgz wrote

Just because it didn’t happen to you doesn’t mean it didn’t happen to other people

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PGHxplant t1_j9rz7mq wrote

Sorry, what’s your point? I absolutely got a huge but fair reassessment. But if fair tax rates were combined with regular reassessments of all property owners we wouldn’t have this atrociously unfair system.

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ktxhopem3276 t1_j9s3cqj wrote

Your assessment wasn’t fair because the county used a biased inflation adjustment and that’s why they lost the lawsuit over assessments recently. The high millage rate is not really relevant to this issue and the lawsuit. There are plenty of other conversations about the high millage rates and the state lost a recent lawsuit about school funding so that might change in the future. What do you think is a fair way to fund schools?

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tesla3by3 t1_j9s5wuv wrote

I’m glad you think yours was fair. But if you’re paying taxes based on the actual sales price (times the CLR), then the taxes you’re paying are correct but probably not fair. The reason being the fair market value is probably the price you paid. For homes that haven’t sold recently, the county uses a 2012 actual assessment. If your house was reassessed due to the sale, the county reduced the assessment by about 80 percent to attempt to calculate what the home would have been worth in 2012.

The courts recently determined the 80% number was not accurate, due to the county using cherry picked data as the basis for the calculation.
The real number should have been 63%.

Assuming your assessment is about 80% of what you paid for the house, you may save 20% by filling an appeal. That would probably put you close to paying your fair share. I’d contact one of the attorneys that probably sent you a mailing when you bought.

And as far as far as fairly funding schools,my take is the resources available to educate a child should not be dependent on the value of his neighbors home

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burritoace t1_j9tbel5 wrote

It's all abstract which is part of the problem. The 80% is probably too high in some areas and way too low in others. A county-wide CLR doesn't accurately represent the situation and still leaves winners and losers.

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tesla3by3 t1_j9thptx wrote

Oh I agree 100%. There should be a full reassessment every4-5 years, with an interim update every year based on comparable sales in areas where enough sales occurred. If not enough sales occurred, use a more neighborhood specific version of a CLR

This would even out the burden, and negatively impact long time home owners in areas where values are rising.

So along with this would have to be some changes to the homestead exemption. Maybe increase the reduction based on years you have owned and occupied the home.

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hypotenoos t1_j9ry2sj wrote

It’s not equal taxation though based on how they screw with the common level ratio

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