PA · constitutions
Pa. Const. art. VIII, § 4
Public utilities
The real property of public utilities is subject to real estate taxes imposed by local taxing authorities. Payment to the Commonwealth of gross receipts taxes or other special taxes in replacement of gross receipts taxes by a public utility and the distribution by the Commonwealth to the local taxing authorities of the amount as herein provided shall, however, be in lieu of local taxes upon its real property which is used or useful in furnishing its public utility service. The amount raised annually by such gross receipts or other special taxes shall not be less than the gross amount of real estate taxes which the local taxing authorities could have imposed upon such real property but for the exemption herein provided. This gross amount shall be determined in the manner provided by law. An amount equivalent to such real estate taxes shall be distributed annually among all local taxing authorities in the proportion which the total tax receipts of each local taxing authority bear to the total tax receipts of all local taxing authorities, or in such other equitable proportions as may be provided by law.
Notwithstanding the provisions of this section, any law which presently subjects real property of public utilities to local real estate taxation by local taxing authorities shall remain in full force and effect.
History
(Apr. 23, 1968, P.L.App.9, Prop. No.5) Adoption. Unless otherwise noted, the provisions of present Article VIII (formerly Article IX) were adopted December 16, 1873, 1874 P.L.3, effective January 1, 1874. The article number was changed from IX to VIII by proclamation of the Governor of July 7, 1967, P.L.1063.
Provenance
- Source
- palegis.us
- Retrieved
- 2026-09-30
- Edition
- supplied-2026-09-30
- Content hash
5319cf2bfe5b333417d261b20a621bb779ba5d4a578d611d4ad618bc8708900b
The link goes to the issuing authority’s own document — the one we read to produce this record. Where a source publishes whole titles rather than sections, your browser may need a moment to jump to the provision.
Unofficial copy of government-published law, reproduced from official sources with full provenance. Not an official publication; verify against official sources before relying on it in a filing. Records in the 'guidance' corpus, and only that corpus, are sub-regulatory (interpretive guidelines, survey procedures) and are not binding law. Validity bounds follow each jurisdiction's declared temporalBasis.