More on Pittsburgh’s Challenge to Charitable Property Tax Exemptions

Today, the Finance department will send a Taxing Jurisdiction Exemption Challenge to the Allegheny County’s Office of Property Assessments for 26 parcels. Included in those properties are parking lots, vacant lots, houses, and office space. pic.twitter.com/TyF01y1K7N

— Mayor Ed Gainey (@MayorEdGainey) March 28, 2023

Yesterday, Phil reported that the City of Pittsburgh planned to officially challenge charitable tax exemption for 26 properties owned by various private organizations or individuals, including Carnegie Mellon University, University of Pittsburgh, and two major hospital systems.  The City’s official announcement came later yesterday and is in the tweet above.  The action was hastened and indeed predictable, no doubt, after a recent state court ruling concerning Tower Health, a nonprofit hospital system that lost its charitable property tax exemption even though it provided community benefit and paid no more than market rate salaries to its top hats.  The Pennsylvania court found that the hospital system was not a “purely public charity” because the salaries, though within reasonable ranges as compared to salaries by other hospital systems, were nevertheless “eye-popping.”  

You can read about “taxing jurisdiction exemption challenges” here.  

darryll jones