Taxation

Assessments. Pottstown has about 8,700 parcels, of which 340 are tax exempt. These tax exempt parcels account for about 20 percent of the total value of Pottstown's properties. And total assessments have been falling for 20 years. The total assessed value -- about $760 million -- is actually lower than 1998, the last time Montgomery County reassessed its property. For a complete list of properties as of June 2018, including their tax status, click here.

Pottstown Council has nearly doubled real estate taxes since 2007. That does not include a $52 annual emergency and municipal services tax first imposed in 2006.

The Pottstown School District has raised taxes about 35 percent since 2007. This was even though a change in the state funding formula has substantially increased state subsidies to the district. In the ten years from 2013-2014 to 2022-2023, state subsidies to the school district have increased 74 percent, from $18 million to $31 million.

So why all the tax increases?  Partially, it’s because revenues are declining.  But mostly, it’s because spending has skyrocketed.

The Pottstown Borough general fund budget has increased 30 percent from 2013 to 2023, from $11.5 million to $15 million.  Pottstown School District spending has also increased 30 percent since 2013, well above the rate of inflation. 

Each year, the Pennsylvania Department of Education compares what it calls “local tax effort” among the 500 school districts in the Commonwealth, based on the taxes levied and the community’s ability to pay (as measured by residents’ income and real estate values).  On this basis, the Pottstown School District has the seventh highest taxes in Pennsylvania.  In other words, Pottstown School District taxes are higher than 99 percent of the school districts in the Commonwealth.

There is no such measurement available for local municipalities.  However, the Pennsylvania Center for Local Government Services does compare the total municipal tax revenues per capita among the state’s boroughs, townships, and cities.  The most recent data shows Pottstown placed 223 out of 2,500 municipalities ranked, which means that Pottstown Borough taxes, per capita, were higher than 91 percent of the municipalities in the state. 

But this statistic doesn’t account for the wealth of a community.  Many municipalities joining Pottstown in the top 9 percent of taxes per capita are quite wealthy, like Abington, Cheltenham, Upper and Lower Merion, and Radnor.  They can afford the spending. We can't

High taxes not only burden Pottstown residents, they discourage new residents and businesses from moving to the borough.  As a recent Philadelphia Tax Reform Commission report noted, “There is a general agreement among economists that local taxes have an important impact on economic growth … where businesses locate and invest.”

Pottstown Borough and Pottstown School District split a 1 percent earned income tax and by levy a tax on all real estate in the borough.  The earned income tax is capped by law at 1 percent, so the only way to increase local revenues is by increasing the real estate tax.

Unfortunately, the assessed value of all real estate in Pottstown has dropped since 1998, the last time the county reassessed properties.