Councilman wants suburban Realtors to pay taxes on Philly home sales

A Philadelphia City Councilman wants to crack down on suburban Realtors who are selling homes in the city and not paying business taxes. 

City Councilman Ed Neilson says he wants an investigation into suburban real estate agents who sell homes in Philadelphia and aren’t paying for a business privilege license or handing over wage taxes.

“To get business privilege taxes, to collect taxes on the commissions they are receiving and since they are outside the city we really aren’t looking at them,” he said. “Our preliminary data says there’s a lot of money we can get, a few million dollars a year and it’s been going on for a long, long time.” 

Neilson says he wants to collect taxes going forward and seek restitution for taxes that should have been paid.

“We have the ability to go after back taxes if you failed to file those taxes so I want them to go back and far as they can,” he said. 

A hearing on his proposal is expected to happen early next year.