Reminder: Discount Period Ends April 30 for Allegheny County Property Taxes

Sewickley area property owners must pay their tax bills soon to take advantage of the 2% discount.

The Allegheny County Treasurer's office is reminding Sewickley area taxpayers that the deadline for the tax discount period is drawing near. In order to save 2% on your county property taxes, bills must be paid in full and received or postmarked by Tuesday, April 30.  “For the second year in a row, the due dates for county taxes had to be adjusted. I am certain that many taxpayers may not remember that their county property taxes are coming due by months end,” Treasurer John Weinstein said in a news release. The County Treasurer’s Office, Room 108, will remain open later until 7:30 p.m. on April 30 to collect taxes at the 2% discount rate. Other methods include paying in person by 4:30 p.m. on other weekdays, paying by mail with the …

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Not Happy with Your Sewickley Property Assessment? You Can Still Appeal

The deadline to file an appeal is April 1.

Sewickley area property owners have another chance to challenge their new assessments, but time is running out. County executive Rich Fitzgerald signed legislation that allows property owners, and taxing bodies, to appeal new real estate values. According to a statement posted on the Allegheny County web site: The Executive and Council recognized that having property owners go through the Court-ordered reassessment has been difficult for everyone.  Acknowledging that, and recognizing that there are those who may not have had an opportunity to appeal, did not get the result they had hoped for, or didn’t understand what their assessment may mean to their taxes, this appeal period allows property owners another chance to work to have the …

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Tax Time: Find Out What the 2013 Tax Rates and Standard Deductions Mean for You

Standard deductions go up, but the ceiling for itemized deductions go down in 2013, plus other changes that will affect your taxes this year.

The Internal Revenue Service announced annual inflation adjustments for tax year 2013, including the tax rate schedules, and other tax changes from the recently passed American Taxpayer Relief Act of 2012.  The tax items for 2013 of greatest interest to most taxpayers include the following changes. Details on these inflation adjustments and others are contained in Revenue Procedure 2013-15, which will be published in Internal Revenue Bulletin 2013-5 on Jan.28, 2013. Other inflation adjusted items were published in October 2012 in Revenue Procedure 2012-41. -News release from the Internal Revenue Service "Like" us on Facebook | Follow us Twitter | Get "Patched" in with our newsletter | Start a blog

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The Debate Begins: How Did the Candidates Do?

The first debate is over. Take our poll and tell us in comments your thoughts after watching the first face-to-face debate between Mitt Romney and Barack Obama.

In short segments that often exceeded the allocated two-minute time periods, the presidential candidates tackled economics, health care, Social Security, education, the role of goverment and the deficit in a debate that sometimes found them saying the same thing in different ways. In a debate moderated by PBS' Jim Lehrer, both Democratic incumbent President Barack Obama and Republican challenger Mitt Romney talked about domestic issues and how they would tackle them, if elected in November. Obama talked of working to make the middle class stronger, job training through community colleges, keeping tuition low, lowering tax rates especially for manufacturers, boosting American energy production and working to close the deficit. Romney talked…

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Bob Howard

5:43 pm on Wednesday, October 10, 2012

For Erin: Have you read Obamacare? It is not a solution to the problem of the uninsured. After it is fully implemented it is estimated that 20 million and up to 30 million will remain uninsured. If it was really about insuring the uninsured, it could be done for all the uninsured at a fraction of the costs as is currently done with auto insurance. 159 new agencies are being created. Their …   more ›

Democrats Call on Rothfus to Pay Payroll Taxes

Rothfus' campaign says the statements are "false" and "offensive."

The Allegheny County Democratic Committee Chairwoman is calling for the Internal Revenue Service and the Pennsylvania Department of Revenue to investigate whether Republican candidate Keith Rothfus skirted around his state and federal tax obligations. Nancy Mills of Moon Township contacted the agencies Wednesday via email and fax asking them to investigate whether Rothfus, a Sewickley resident, who is running against Mark Critz for the 12th Congressional District seat, illegally misclassified his campaign workers as independent contractors to avoid paying payroll taxes. The request comes following an article Monday in The Johnstown Tribune-Democrat, reporting that Rothfus hires all of his staff members as independent contractors, making …

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Letters to the Editor

Letter to the Editor: Grading the State Budget on Education

A TEACH (Tell Everyone All Cuts Hurt) representative takes a look at the state budget priorities.

Hey, Taxpayer, While you were out trying to avoid heatstroke this summer, your state government actually did something. The Pennsylvania Legislature passed another one of those pesky budgets determining exactly what your taxes have bought you this year.  I don’t know about you, but I don’t mind paying taxes if I get a good return on my investment. And what better investment than our children, our future? I’m speaking, of course, about public education. So was this a good return? Let’s see: GOOD NEWS PA. BUDGET PASSED HIGHER THAN GOVERNOR WANTED: Last year, the Legislature cut $818 million from public schools—especially the poorest ones. This year, the Gov. Tom Corbett wanted $94 million in additional cuts, but instead the Legislature voted…

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School Budget Season: Find Out What Other Area Districts Are Proposing

The Quaker Valley School Board is proposing to raise taxes by .55 mills. Here's a look at what other boards are doing nearby.

In April, the Quaker Valley School Board approved a $41.398 million proposed final budget for the 2012-13 school year that would include a .55 mill tax increase if approved. Superintendent Joseph Clapper cautioned the budget is preliminary and that additional cuts are expected between now and June 19, when the board plans to vote at 7 p.m. on a final spending plan. At .55 mills, a property owner with a home assessed at $156,000—the median value of a district home—would pay $85.80 more in taxes each year, an increase of about $7.15 per month. Here's a look at what other school boards are voting to do around the area: Baldwin-Whitehall The Baldwin-Whitehall School Board adopted a preliminary 2012-13 budget with an increase of 1.08 mills, …

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Budget Season: Quaker Valley Approves Preliminary Budget with Plenty of Unknowns

The preliminary budget of $42.1 million for the 2012-2013 school year gives Quaker Valley the opportunity to file for exceptions to the Act 1 index limit.

Quaker Valley's approval of a $42,142,902 million preliminary budget at Tuesday’s school board meeting means the district will apply to the state for permission to raise property taxes by nearly .3 mills. Under Act 1 of 2006, the district is permitted to ask the state for special exceptions to increase property taxes in the 2012-13 budget above the inflationary index. For Quaker Valley, the index under Act 1 — also known at the Taxpayer Relief Act — is currently set at 1.4 percent, or .2933 mills in tax. John Sheline, director of finance and operations, said the district essentially had only two options: to pass a motion agreeing to stay within the index or pass a preliminary budget that grants authority to request exceptions. Sheline said…

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Sewickley Works to Resolve Issue of $335,000 in Tax Liens

Many of the 35 properties with outstanding liens either don’t have a physical address or sit vacant and abandoned.

Sewickley borough, school and tax collection officials plan to meet later this month to address property liens that add up to more than $335,000 in unpaid taxes. Councilman Stan Ference said officials would decide at the Jan. 26 meeting how to handle the $335,636 in outstanding liens for 35 borough properties, many of which either don’t have a physical address or have been sitting vacant and abandoned. A tax lien is a legal claim filed against a property to collect a debt.  “We’re meeting to figure out what we want to do with these 35 properties that have no valid owner or address where essentially people have walked away,” Ference said at Monday night's council meeting. Sewickley has been cracking down on delinquent properties in recent …

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Edgeworth Holds Firm on Taxes for Ninth Straight Year

The borough council approves the 2012 budget and tax rate, which remains at 5.4 mills.

Edgeworth Borough real estate taxes have remained the same for the past eight years. Now, thanks to a unanimous vote to approve the 2012 final budget, the taxes will hold firm for the ninth straight year. In Tuesday night’s meeting, the borough council confirmed the previous 5.4-mill tax rate for 2012. At 5.4 mills, a property owner assessed at $100,000 will continue to pay $540. Even though the future of the value of borough homes is uncertain due to the delayed Allegheny County reassessments, Edgeworth has estimated that it would receive the exact amount of revenue to support its budget of $2,507,400. Currently, the combined value of all of Edgeworth’s real estate is about $280 million, with the median property value being $320,000. This…

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