Philadelphia's controller said Wednesday that city officials haven't been able to confirm if $164 million in real estate taxes has been transferred electronically to the city over the past five years. Officials are trying to confirm if the city received the money from title companies but can't say if it's missing or not, Controller Alan Butkovitz's spokesman Harvey Rice said.
The city was due a total of $881.2 million in real estate transfer taxes over the past five years. About 60 percent of that is collected electronically.
As recently as 2005, the city received less than 1 percent of its real estate transfer taxes electronically, Butkovitz said.
"The potential impact of this control weakness will increase over time, as a larger portion of the real estate transfer tax is paid electronically," Butkovitz said in a statement. "They have no ability to confirm the receipt of any funds that are transferred electronically."
Over the past several years, amid the nationwide economic downturn, sagging revenues have prompted the city to make several rounds of budget cuts.
The city was working to resolve the transfer tax issue and improve the record-keeping system, Mayor Michael Nutter's spokesman Mark McDonald said.
