House Co-Sponsorship Memoranda

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House of Representatives
Session of 2015 - 2016 Regular Session

MEMORANDUM

Posted:	March 2, 2015 04:21 PM
From:	Representative Martin T. Causer
To:	All House members
Subject:	Cosponsor - Amending Clean and Green

The Pennsylvania Farmland and Forest Land Assessment Act of 1974 (commonly known as Clean and Green) was enacted after successful voter referendum and amendment to the Pennsylvania Constitution to provide for preferential assessment of agricultural and forest land. The clear intent of the act is to provide a reduction of property taxes by assessing enrolled land at its use value rather than at its fair market value. Each year, the Department of Agriculture provides use values for each county and a county must use those values, or lower values that are applied uniformly among each land use category. In counties where a county-wide reassessment has not been conducted for many years, the fair market values may be lower than the use values provided by the Department of Agriculture. In those counties, being enrolled in Clean and Green provides no tax benefit, and in fact, results in higher property taxes. As this phenomenon is contrary to the intent of the act, I will be introducing legislation to amend the act to prohibit the application of use values that result in assessments higher than fair market value.

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