§ 8812. Exemptions from taxation.
(a) General rule.--The following property shall be exempt from all county, city, borough, town, township, road, poor, county institution district and school real estate taxes:
(1) All churches, meetinghouses or other actual places of regularly stated religious worship, with the ground annexed necessary for their occupancy and use.
(2) All actual places of burial, including burial grounds and all mausoleums, vaults, crypts or structures, intended to hold or contain the bodies of the dead if used or held by a person or organization deriving no private or corporate profit from the enterprise and no substantial part of whose activity consists of selling personal property in connection therewith.
(3) All hospitals, universities, colleges, seminaries, academies, associations and institutions of learning, benevolence or charity, including fire and rescue stations, with the grounds annexed and necessary for their occupancy and use, founded, endowed and maintained by public or private charity as long as all of the following apply:
(i) The entire revenue derived by the entity is applied to support the entity and to increase the efficiency and facilities of the entity, the repair and the necessary increase of grounds and buildings of the entity and for no other purpose.
(ii) The property of purely public charities is necessary to and actually used for the principal purposes of the institution and not used in such a manner as to compete with commercial enterprise.
(4) All property of a charitable organization providing residential housing services in which the charitable nonprofit organization receives subsidies for at least 95% of the residential housing units from a low-income Federal housing program as long as any surplus from the assistance or subsidy is monitored by the appropriate governmental agency and used solely to advance common charitable purposes within the charitable organization.
(5) All school buildings belonging to any municipality or school district, with the ground annexed and necessary for the occupancy and use of the school buildings. This exemption shall not apply to assessments or charges for the grading, paving, curbing, macadamizing, maintenance or improvement of streets or roads and constructing sewers and sidewalks and other municipal improvements abutting land owned by the school district. A school district of the second, third or fourth class situated within a county subject to the provisions of this chapter and which is coterminous with a city, borough, town or township shall not be subject to assessments or charges for the grading, paving, curbing, macadamizing, maintenance or improvement of streets or roads and constructing sewers and sidewalks and other municipal improvements abutting land owned by the school district, but the school may agree to pay all or part of the assessments or charges.
(6) All courthouses and jails with the grounds annexed and necessary for their occupancy and use.
(7) All public parks owned and held by trustees for the benefit of the public and used for amusements, recreation, sports and other public purposes without profit.
(8) All other public property used for public purposes with the ground annexed and necessary for the occupancy and use of the property, but this shall not be construed to include property otherwise taxable which is owned or held by an agency of the Federal Government. This chapter or any other law shall not be construed to exempt from taxation any privilege, act or transaction conducted upon public property by persons or entities which would be taxable if conducted upon nonpublic property regardless of the purpose for which the activity occurs, even if conducted as agent for or lessee of any public authority.
(9) All real property used for limited access highways and maintained by public funds.
(10) All real and personal property owned, occupied and used by any branch, post or camp of honorably discharged servicemen or servicewomen and actually and regularly used for benevolent, charitable or patriotic purposes.
(11) All real property owned by one or more institutions of purely public charity, used and occupied partly by the owner or owners and partly by other institutions of purely public charity and necessary for the occupancy and use of the institutions so using it.
(12) All playgrounds with the equipment and grounds annexed necessary for the occupancy and use of the playgrounds, founded, endowed or maintained by public or private charity which apply their revenue to the support and repair of the playgrounds and to increase the efficiency and facilities thereof, either in ground or buildings or otherwise, and for no other purpose, and owned, leased, possessed or controlled by public school boards or properly organized and duly constituted playground associations, and approved and accepted by the board of the county in which the playgrounds are situated. A school board may, by resolution, agree to pay for grading, paving, macadamizing, maintenance or improvement of streets or roads abutting land owned by the school district.
(13) All buildings owned and occupied by free public nonsectarian libraries and the land on which they stand, and that which is immediately and necessarily appurtenant thereto, notwithstanding the fact that some portion or portions of the building or lands appurtenant may be yielding rentals to the corporation or association managing the library. The net receipts of the corporation or association from rentals shall be used solely for the purpose of maintaining the library.
(14) All property, including buildings and the land reasonably necessary thereto, provided and maintained by public or private charity and used exclusively for public libraries, museums or art galleries and not used for private or corporate profit so long as the public use continues. In the case of concert music halls used partly for exempt purposes and partly for nonexempt purposes, that part measured either in area or in time, whichever is the lesser, which is used for nonexempt purposes shall be valued, assessed and subject to taxation.
(15) Notwithstanding the provisions of subsection (b) or any other provision of this chapter to the contrary, all fire and rescue stations which are founded, endowed and maintained by public or private charity, together with the grounds annexed and necessary for the occupancy and use of the fire and rescue stations, and social halls and grounds owned and occupied by fire and rescue stations and used on a regular basis for activities which contribute to the support of fire and rescue stations, as long as the net receipts from the activities are used solely for the charitable purposes of the fire and rescue stations.
(b) Exceptions.--
(1) Except as otherwise provided in subsection (a)(13) and (15), all property, real or personal, other than that which is actually and regularly used and occupied for the purposes specified in this section, and all property from which any income or revenue is derived, other than from recipients of the bounty of the institution or charity, shall be subject to taxation, except where exempted by law for State purposes.
(2) Except as otherwise provided in subsection (a)(12), all property, real and personal, actually and regularly used and occupied for the purposes specified in this section shall be subject to taxation unless the person or persons, associations or corporation so using and occupying the property shall be seized of the legal or equitable title in the realty and possessor of the personal property absolutely.
(c) Institutions of Purely Public Charity Act.--Each provision of this chapter is to be read in para materia with the act of November 26, 1997 (P.L.508, No.55), known as the Institutions of Purely Public Charity Act, and to the extent that a provision of this chapter is inconsistent with the Institutions of Purely Public Charity Act, the provision is superseded by that act.
(Oct. 24, 2012, P.L.1286, No.160, eff. 60 days)
2012 Amendment. Act 160 amended subsecs. (a) intro. par. and (b)(1).
Cross References. Section 8812 is referred to in section 8844 of this title.
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