Council wants to crack down on Philadelphia tax deadbeats

A Philadelphia City Councilwoman says the city can’t afford to let hundreds of millions of tax dollars go uncollected.Councilwoman Cindy Bass says there is too much uncollected tax money and she plans a city council hearing to review ways to do a better job.

“It’s critical that as we adjust our tax structure here for residents and commercial properties, we also do a serious effort to collect those resources that are outstanding and also look at how we got ourselves into this mess and make sure that it doesn’t occur again,” said Bass.

Bass says there are millions of dollars at stake.

“On the high side the estimates are $500,000,000.  On the low side $225,000,000 and so there’s money to be collected, and we need to go and get it,” she said. “There’s no reason that Philadelphia should be at the bottom of the barrel when it comes to collecting these resources.”

Bass says the money could be put to good use improving Philadelphia’s schools and delivering basic city services.