Tax Enforcement Programs and Neighborhood Revitalization: Mutually Compatible Goals?

Abstract

Despite repeated criticism, the real property tax continues to serve as the backbone of municipal taxation systems. Recent data collected by the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy indicate that, in terms of simple efficiency, the real property tax is suffering its poorest track record since the time of the Depression. Contemporary urban real property tax delinquency, however, has a peculiar aspect which was not present during the 1930s. Whereas, during the Depression, delin-quency most often occurred with vacant, prematurely subdivided land, today municipalities are confronted with a problem posed by occupied residential buildings. In the words of Robert Schur, a New York City-based housing consultant, “The growing volume of multifamily dwellings so passing into city ownership … is today more a social problem than a matter of replenishing the city treasury.“¹