The state legislature passed the Taxpayer Relief Act in June of 2006. The law applies only to school districts (not counties, townships, or boroughs). Key features of the law include: Requiring a public referendum to raise taxes beyond an annual limit Expansion of the Senior Citizens Property Tax and Rent Rebate program Specifying the formula
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A common question among tax collectors is whether they are required to submit payment detail with their monthly reports. The short answer is “probably not.” As always, the devil is in the details. But the manual says I have to?!?! When I was borough secretary, I would receive “Right-to-Know” requests from data collection companies quoting
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The Pennsylvania Department of Community and Economic Development (DCED) produces a Tax Collector Manual for PA tax collectors. As of this writing, the manual is available from their website at the following URL: https://dced.pa.gov/download/tax-collectors-manual/. Unfortunately, the state website’s URLs are constantly changing. The above link could go dead at any time. For that reason, I’m
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Pennsylvania offers a program to reduce property taxes on one’s primary residence. It is known as the Homestead Property Exclusion. Chapter 85 (Assessments of Persons and Property) of Title 53 (Municipalities Generally) of the Pennsylvania Code details the program. Refer to Subchapter F (Homestead Property Exclusion) within the PDF below for more information.
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You can’t save every record forever. But you can’t just get rid of stuff you don’t want whenever you feel like it. To maintain your sanity, you should follow Pennsylvania’s record disposition schedule. And to stay out of legal trouble, you also need to follow the proper steps before destroying any records.
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This is part 1 in the Tax Claim Life Cycle series. The first step in the tax claim process is the return of unpaid taxes by the tax collector. By law, tax collectors must turn over a list of unpaid taxes to the county Tax Claim Bureau between January 1 and April 30. County commissioners may
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Pennsylvania Act 394 of May 25, 1945, is more commonly referred to as the Local Tax Collection Law. This law, last amended October 30, 2017, relates to the collection of taxes by most counties, municipalities, and school districts. It also “confer[s] powers and impos[es] duties on tax collectors.” The act has been codified as 72
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The first step in the process is tax assessment. The goal of this step is to assign a fair and equitable value to each parcel in the county relative to the value of every other parcel in the county. The next step is bill preparation. This involves gathering millage rates from the taxing bodies, determining
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