Abstract

Measuring and Mapping Real Estate Transfer Taxes
Track: State and Local Government
Author(s): Joan Decker, Megan Heckert

Philadelphia's Department of Records (DOR) manages recording of deeds, mortgage satisfactions, and real estate transfer tax (RTT). The City's Budget Office requested that DOR provide regular summaries of RTT receipts categorized by property type (industrial, residential, etc.), which they use to perform revenue and budget planning activities. DOR's initial attempts to perform this activity regularly left several million dollars of RTT revenue unallocated to a specific property type. The DOR database does not contain data on property type, which it would get by matching RTT records with a Board of Revision of Taxes database. Unfortunately, not all addresses match across the two databases. This presentation will present DOR's response to these problems, including development of an automated process using ArcGIS Server and the City's rich GIS infrastructure to match address and an interactive mapping and analysis website to provide users with rich functionality for searching and analysis of DOR's data.

Joan Decker
Philadelphia Department of Records
City Hall, Rm. 156
Philadelphia , Pennsylvania 19107
United States
Phone: 215-686-2261
E-mail: joan.decker@phila.gov

Megan Heckert
Avencia Incorporated
340 N. 12th St.
Suite 402
Philadelphia , Pennsylvania 19107
United States
Phone: 215-701-7712
E-mail: mheckert@avencia.com