In Duffield House Associates v. City of Philadelphia, 2021 Pa. Commw. LEXIS 520 (July 29, 2021), the Pennsylvania Commonwealth Court recently analyzed whether the city of Philadelphia's selective reassessment in tax year 2018 of only commercial properties at current market value violated the uniformity clause and the assessment law's requirement that the city assess all properties annually at actual market value.

For the 2018 tax year, the city reassessed 41,730 commercial properties in the city at current market values, imposing more than $118 million in additional real estate taxes on those properties, the opinion said. However, the city did not reassess 538,380 residential properties in the city, leaving their assessments at 2017 tax year values and imposing no additional real estate taxes on those properties.