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House Co-Sponsorship Memoranda
House of Representatives
Session of 2021 - 2022
Regular Session
MEMORANDUM
| Posted: | December 3, 2020 07:09 PM |
|---|---|
| From: | Representative Eddie Day Pashinski |
| To: | All House members |
| Subject: | Clarifying Gaming-Funded School Property Tax Relief Notice |
| I intend to introduce legislation that will amend the Taxpayer Relief Act in order to better clarify the amount and source of school property tax relief on school district tax notices received by taxpayers. As has become evident through conversations with people in my legislative district, school property tax notices poorly explain the extent to which school property taxes have been reduced through proceeds of slot machine gaming. These notices are written in unclear statutory language instead of words the average Pennsylvanian can easily comprehend. Therefore, my bill rewrites the notice of property tax relief required in Section 343 in a conversational tone and requires that it be conspicuous on the notice. Specifically, the notice would read: Your enclosed tax bill includes a tax reduction of (amount of exclusion) for your property. You received this tax relief through a homestead and/or farmstead exclusion funded by the gaming industry and provided under the Pennsylvania Taxpayer Relief Act, a law passed by the Pennsylvania General Assembly designed to reduce your property taxes. This reduction is separate from any tax increase or additional tax reduction by your school district. While I expect the debate regarding the overall effects of gaming to continue, we can agree that our constituents must be well-informed regarding the amount by which their school property taxes are reduced – and how the funds for that reduction are generated. I hope you will join me in this effort to bring more transparency to our school property tax collection process and increase accountability for the tax reductions generated by our casinos. This legislation was introduced as HB1044 in the 2019-20 Legislative Session and included the following co-sponsors: PASHINSKI, HARKINS, DAVIDSON, CALTAGIRONE, KULIK, McNEILL, NEILSON, ROEBUCK, PYLE, HILL-EVANS, MILLARD, DeLUCA, GOODMAN, BURGOS, CIRESI, FREEMAN, KORTZ, COX, A. DAVIS, TOOHIL AND SAMUELSON |
Introduced as HB986