Article URL: https://www.prohousingpgh.org/blog/new-report-modernizing-property-tax-assessments-in-allegheny-county Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48886881 Poin…

Allegheny County has not conducted periodic, regular property reassessments since the 1970s. As a result, assessed values have drifted further and further away from actual market values, creating inequities for taxpayers and making the property tax system less transparent and less efficient. This report examines how modern, open-source assessment methods could be used to produce fair, transparent, and affordable countywide reassessments. Using publicly available data and open-source valuation models, we estimate updated assessments for residential properties across Allegheny County, evaluate their quality against International Association of Assessing Officers (IAAO) standards, and estimate the cost of implementing a regular reassessment program. Modern automated valuation methods can produce assessments substantially closer to market value than the current system using publicly available data. The largest relative assessment increases are likely to occur in neighborhoods that have appreciated rapidly over the past decade, particularly within the City of Pittsburgh. Existing land assessments often value neighboring parcels very differently despite having nearly identical locations and characteristics, reducing confidence in the fairness of the system. Regular reassessments could likely be performed in-house by Allegheny County for approximately $1 million per year, far below the costs often associated with court-ordered reassessments. Based on estimates from the economics literature, regular reassessments could generate tens of millions of dollars in annual economic benefits by improving efficiency, reducing distortions, and increasing confidence in the property tax system.