Research Summaries

PEL  issues analyses of county, school district and municipal tax levies, tax rates, and property assessments in central and eastern Pennsylvania designed to identify changes from the past year and during the past five years in tax levies, millage rates, and property valuations with a view  to reminding public officials that someone is keeping score on tax increases.

PEL issues a series of reports addressing real estate tax collection costs in ten central and eastern Pennsylvania counties and their boroughs, townships, and school districts in keeping with a once-in-four-years opportunity for local taxing jurisdictions to adjust the methods and rates of compensation of their elected tax collectors. PEL provided the information necessary to help reduce tax collection costs and outlined the steps that should be taken in each jurisdiction to achieve reductions. Over the past two decades PEL’s recommendations on how to cut the costs of collecting real estate taxes resulted in hundreds of thousands of dollars in continuing annual cost reductions, as well as unspecified savings in future cost avoidance in just a ten-county area.

Analyses of Real Estate Tax Levies and Tax Collection Costs in Eleven Central and Eastern Pennsylvania Counties

1. Berks
2. Lancaster
3. Lehigh
4. Cambria
5. Luzerne
6. Cumberland
7. Lycoming
8. Dauphin
9. Northampton
10. Lackawanna
11. York