Wednesday, October 26, 2011

We Can't Stop Here! This is Tax Country!

There are times where I'm just so angry, I need to create new words to truly express how kardsadically pissed off I truly am about stupid sheissm. Case in point:

Under Mr. Peduto's bill, commercial and industrial developers would receive 10 years of tax breaks, with no cap on annual savings. Developers would get a 100 percent tax break for the first two years. After that, the tax break would decline by 10 percent every two years, concluding with a 60 percent tax break in years nine and 10.
Gee und da miff spleeb! Pliffoo blaboo!

Sorry, I'll watch my language.

Those of you that are still reading this blog will know that I have a peculiar bugbear when it comes to real estate taxes in the City of Pittsburgh. I won't go back over it here, except to say that the elimination of the land/building property tax split is one of the dumbest things that City Council ever did, including Jim Motznik.

Basically, Peduto's plan provides an abatement to real estate property improvements up to a certain amount.

Fine, except that (1) it will probably accidentally include a bunch of projects on which the City will end up losing tax revenue (e.g. the next phase of Bakery Square), (3) the tax benefits of such a program are so minor that most of the deals that get them are going to happen anyway and not because of the abatement, and (3) this solves a problem brought about by eliminating the land/building split in the first damn place.

It's almost a Rube Goldberg public policy device for solving a particularly simple matter of taxes.

Gerflump!

2 comments:

C. Briem said...

in the case of Bakery Square I.. is the first floor of a building part of the land, or part of the structure.

Oh, never mind.

MH said...

I keep explaining the land/building tax to people. It never works, but I'll keep at it because it is good policy and because I have a very small lot.