Keystone Opportunity Zones unfair agrees state legislator Tim Mahoney

Update: Letter to PA Rep. Timothy Mahoney (October 8, 2007)

http://dirtline.tripod.com/wakeup/id22.html

We can't allow the issue of the unfairness and unconstitutionality of Keystone Opportunity Zones to die after state Rep. Mahoney publicly agreed KOZs are unfair...

State Representative (Pennsylvania) Timothy Mahoney (D-51st), agreed with another caller and myself during an appearance on WMBS 590 Let's Talk with Bob Foltz (Tuesday, August 28, 2007) that the state's Keystone Opportunity Zones are:

unfair
not uniform according to the PA Constitution
unconstitutional

During the follow-up call, rep. Mahoney was then told that wasn't enough to just agree, that was good news, but now what would the Representative do in Harrisburg about the unfair KOZs.

Rep. Mahoney responded after pressing that he would take some action - it wasn't clear exactly what action though he was asked if he'd submit a bill eliminating them - but his action rested on his getting the job done on his two top priorities.

He noted those as being:

Pennsylvania open records
local real-estate property tax elimination

My rejoinder to that was the second effort might take years to accomplish and the legislator should act now. He should make KOZ unfairness an equal top priority to the other two of his priorities since many local property owners were losing their property to tax sales now and would continue to do so meanwhile other property owners don't have the threat of that action residing or locating in a tax-free KOZ.

Rep. Mahoney then offered to meet and subsequently I agreed to such a potential meeting to try my best to convince the state legislator to take action now and make KOZ unfairness for home and business property owners his third top priority.

I have pointed out on these pages previously how the three local taxing bodies (school district boards, county board of commissioners, and municipal boards) adopted KOZs via resolutions back in 1998 and in later resolutions which expanded them.

In many cases, KOZ status is for a 10-year duration, however in other instances, the tax-exemptions which apply to more than local real estate property taxes, run for 12 to 15 years and are now out to the year 2029.

If KOZs are unfair and unconstitutional now, they should be eliminated now.

The state legislator takes an oath to the PA Constitution to uphold the Constitution. Seeing something unfair and not uniform and doing nothing about it is not doing one's duty to that oath.

Rep. Mahoney should hear from any and all who agree with him with the principle that KOZs are unfair.

I especially invite any candidates for public offices that include school boards and municipal boards and county commissioner boards to make their positions known on this issue to Rep. Mahoney.

Should Rep. Mahoney publicly hear from any of the candidates and more citizens who support those candidates he might be motivated to act now.

State Representative Timothy Mahoney website and contact info

http://www.legis.state.pa.us/cfdocs/legis/home/member_information/house_bio.cfm?districtnumber=51

http://www.pahouse.com/Mahoney/

My website concerning Keystone Opportunity Zones non-uniformity

http://dirtline.tripod.com/wakeup/

Update: Letter to Rep. Timothy Mahoney

http://dirtline.tripod.com/wakeup/id22.html

Related

Tax free homes question for county commissioner candidates

http://netthetruthonline.blogspot.com/2007/04/tax-free-homes-question-for-county.html

Unequal taxation are KOZs

http://netthetruthonline.blogspot.com/2007/04/unequal-taxation-are-kozs.html