Philadelphia Councilman Bill Green pushes measure to establish lowest tax rate possible under AVI

Councilman Bill Green introduced a measure yesterday that would repeal the Actual Value Initiative’s Homestead Exemption and establish the lowest tax rate possible under Mayor Michael Nutter’s new property-tax system. Under Nutter’s new system, AVI for short, properties will be assessed and taxed based on their true market value, rather than a predefined percentage.

“The best tax reform we can get is the lowest tax rate we can achieve,” Green said yesterday.

Council delayed implementation of AVI until 2014 so the city had time to finish an assessment of all properties and establish the total value of all city properties. That process produced a total value of approximately $98 billion in taxable property values, with roughly 5,000 properties still to be assessed.