Next year, Luzerne County officials are likely to remove the property-tax exemption from closed churches and religious schools, according to this report.
Pennsylvania's tax code allows exemptions only for "actual places of regularly stated religious worship." The county's assessment director says this condition isn't met when there's no regular worship.
The new policy could significantly affect the Catholic Diocese of Scranton, which is closing 45 churches and some schools in the county. Northampton and Carbon counties took similar steps, after which the Diocese of Allentown filed suit, claiming that the buildings should still be exempt from taxes under a provision forgiving taxes on charities.
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