Stroudsburg, Pennsylvania, Township Will Tax Renters

It's tax time in America. This year's taxation bite comes at a particularly bad time for the nation's economy. National unemployment hovers around 10 percent. The impact of the 2008 economic crash had only begun to sink into the 2009 tax picture when that year's taxed were collected. Or not collected. In 2010, states, cities, and small towns across the country are starved for cash. High profile state governors can look to President Obama for bailouts for their deficits. The pain felt in small towns, municipalities and townships across the country won't likely be heard in the overall clamor.

But the pain has been heard in one local Pennsylvania township which passed a renter registration ordinance to make sure every worker pays the local tax. The renter registration ordinance requires landlords to provide information about their own activities, and lists of their tenants. According to Darryl Eppley, Vice Chairm of the Stroud Township Supervisors, the ordinance was passed in a zoning commission meeting of February 16 and went into effect February 21.

So why did Stroud Township, Pennsylvania, pass an ordinance which some claim appears to discriminate against renters? Renters often escape paying local income taxes because no one knows they're there. It's been a problem for many years, particularly in border towns.

In eastern Pennsylvania, the Delaware River marks the border with New Jersey. It is estimated that a daily average of about 24,000 Pennsylvania residents cross into New Jersey each morning at the Delaware Water Gap bridge. Most are headed to higher paying jobs in New York City, about 70 miles away. A CNN Money Web site article quotes Census Bureau figures identifying East Stroudsburg as America's longest commute. Some of the commuters are home-owners, but many are renting.

How many renters there are in the many small municipalities closest to the river is an unknown. Many renters receive services without paying for them while the 1.5 percent tax burden rests on others. Put simply, the small towns are suffering under diminished revenues and the risings costs of services.

Aside from local tax issues, the ordinance could be a step in eliminating other problems caused by absentee landlords and a growing transient population. Not far from where we lived seven years ago, there is a vacant lot. There was a dilapidated house at that address at one time. To the chagrin of neighbors, the house was occupied by an unknown number of persons, two of whom died in a 2007 fire.

That East Stroudsburg fire tragedy was symptomatic of other problems that frustrate the residents of transient border communities. East Stroudsburg Borough Zoning Officer John Blick spoke of the "ghettoized" students of nearby East Stroudsburg University in another Pocono Record story about the fire.

Every town has at least one "nuisance house" and even "nice neighborhoods" may have several of them. Neighbors have little idea who inhabits those houses. Lawns are unkempt, often filled with abandoned toys, rusting lawnmowers, piles of wood, dilapidated camping trailers, and last year's deflated Christmas Santas. Tattered couches adorn the porches, sometimes occupied with open-air beer parties.

Authorities often find it nearly impossible to do anything to assuage the anger of neighbors because such things are mostly legal. Landlords are hard to locate, especially in the wake of the real estate flipping fervor which led to the housing bubble. Residents change rapidly and car doors slam into the night. Drug dealers and college students may be indistinguishable in appearance. Some renters occupy houses in shifts, in accordance with their work schedules. There are day shift renters who work night shifts, and night shift renters who work day shifts.

The Stroud Township ordinance will require landlords to register themselves and their tenants on a regular schedule. It will require landlords of rented apartments to report changes of residents within 30 days, subject to prosecution and fines. Eppley says that similar ordinances have been recently passed in the nearby towns of Stroudsburg and East Stroudsburg.