Quote:
Originally Posted by cardeza
The wage tax will never be drastically lowered, its the largest chunk of revenue. Lets not forget the state wage tax is 3% and no one ever talks about cutting that levy. Only the federal gov has the ability to cut taxes without actually worrying about paying for stuff- that's because they borrow the money needed to make ends meet. Local and state government cannot do that so you can't simply slash a tax with no plan as to how to balance the books.
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The basket of taxes the city uses to collect revenue could be changed or evolved over time.
Kenney had that opportunity when he nearly doubled property taxes over the course of his tenure thus far. He could have diverted some of that revenue to further decrease business and/or wage taxes but instead he increased taxes and just spent it all.
Also, while I agree the wage tax will never completely go away, I think there is a tipping point at which it probably drives business away and point below which people would perceive it to be reasonable and acknowledge that cities by nature have additional costs that need to be covered (ex transportation).
For me, that "feels" like it would be around 2.5 %. Until now, every incremental cut that has been made to the wage tax has been followed by a year in increased wage tax revenues (perhaps with the exception of times during a recession). That in and of itself should show this joke mayor that they can pay for themselves.
Other Philly taxes are just nuissance taxes. The "business priviledge" tax is ironic for sure.