Philadelphia Business Tax Agenda
Interesting discussion going on at Young Philly Politics about the local Chamber of Commerce’s efforts to drum up support for a reduction in the local business-privilege tax.
Now, I am not a tax expert. The city’s Tax Reform Commission did say that our system needs simplifying, which surprises me not at all, and that tax rates ultimately needed to go down in order to keep the city competitive. Ray at YPP seems to have some doubts about that, and I see where he’s coming from. Cities provide a certain critical mass of customers and workers that companies are always going to need to be around. But the suburbs do try to compete with the city. I live right near the border with Bucks County, and when we drive to one of the suburban malls we’re greeted by a “Welcome to Business-Friendly Bensalem” sign. And the city and commonwealth wind up providing huge incentives to companies on a case-by-case basis anyway, that maybe we wouldn’t have to provide if we had abetter system in the first place. So simpler and lower taxes are fine by me, if they’re affordable. And there’s the rub. Even the head of the Commission has pointed out that it isn’t cheap to run a city, and wonders where the city will find the money to pay for the Commission’s grand 10-year plan. It may well be that any tax simplification plans are going to have to turn out to be revenue neutral for the time being.
But the Chamber is clearly going great guns to try and get this particular tax cut enacted. It’ll be interesting to see how this fight turns out.
About Dave Thomer
Born and raised in Philadelphia. Studied philosophy at Fordham University in the Bronx, where I made many great friends and met my wonderful wife. We moved back to Philadelphia, where I studied philosophy some more and became a teacher. Online and off, I'm looking for ways that we can be better citizens and build stronger communities.