[RP TownTalk] Should apartments pay their fair share in taxes?

[Rob Oppenheim]

Apartments pay a lot less in property taxes (per family) than do single family homes.

Property taxes on houses in our town run about $1,500 per home,
and only about $280 per apartment! (This is the Riverdale Park 
portion of the property taxes).

True, apartments do not get trash pickup, but they do get all the 
other town services. Trash pickup is less than 15% of our budget, 
so apartments get about 85% of the town's services while paying 
less than 20% of the taxes.

Strangely, large apartment buildings are currently exempt from the 
town's rental license fee. We should establish a per apartment 
rental license fee that applies to all apartments.

If such a fee were just $10/month per apt ($120/year) that would 
generate about $100,000 in revenue. I think it should be even higher.

(To be fair, the fee should be less for smaller buildings, say those 
with 30 or fewer units, as smaller buildings pay proportionally more 
property taxes per unit than do the larger buildings.)

There are other taxes that might be more equitable too.
Such as a utility tax (Hyattsville has one, we do not).

Rob Oppenheim
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