Quote:
Originally Posted by ScreamShatter
Maybe or maybe not. Broad tax reform in PA and Philly would make the city more appealing for businesses. We may pick up some businesses from the burbs. But we’d likely win more from other cities or international companies expanding into US.
It would have an impact. Anything the city can do to diversify the tax burden and spread it out on a wider group of people would help build the city’s middle class.
For the sake of everyone, let’s not go too deep with tax talk. Many people hate it and want to be respectful.
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Everyone needs to get an understanding of PA law before they oversimplify these "slam dunk" arguments. Philadelphia has very little control over its ability to shift the tax burden based on PA law. As has been noted, there was attempt to get Harrisburg to move towards amending the constitution to allow higher real estate tax rates for commercial properties and it died. In PA you can't have variable tax rates on anything which severely limits flexibility in crafting tax policy. Right now thousands of Philly residents are furious over their recent assessments and tax bills- and that is at today's rate. Shifting funding burden to RE tax under current uniformity clause constraints would be political suicide for any elected official.