I know that within my own family, who all live out in various PA and NJsuburbs, I pay about 20% of what the LOWEST of their property taxes happen to be! They can't believe how LOW my taxes are. This is also one of the primary reasons why the Suburbs hate the City Wage Tax -- they can easily see that Philadelphians are NOT paying their fair share.<<
I think this line of reasoning mixes apples and kiwis. It would hold up as
an argument if you compared, say, the total local tax burden on
like-situated individuals in both locations. For example, if you compare the
sum of my property taxes as a Philadelphia homeowner, plus my wage taxes as
a Philadelphia resident, to the sum of the local property taxes plus
commuter wage tax of a homeowner who lives in the suburbs and works in the
City, you might see a different picture.
Yes and no, but it is true ... it looks MUCH worse for the City resident when you pay close attention to the total tax picture. (We're talking about wage earners here, not the self-employed who have a whole different set of business taxes to deal with.)
Both the City and Suburban resident pay the same City Wage Tax. (Actually, the wage tax on Non-residents is slightly less than on Residents - 4.4 for Residents, 3.8 for Non-residents.)
Both the City and Suburban resident pay the same State Sales tax, with the exception that if you make your purchase IN Philadelphia County, you pay an extra 1% to provide support for "tourism." (We can ignore the fact that money goes to buy the Eagles and Phillies each a new stadium and the Philadelphia Orchestra a new concert hall.)
So that leaves the only difference between the City resident and the Suburban resident -- their Property Tax levy.
You can do the experiment yourself -- keep your job in the city, and go look for a house in the suburbs. What changes? In addition to continuing your support of the City, you now add the support of your local municipality and county. The more desirable the location, the higher the taxes.
The fact remains that if City residents paid Property Taxes at the same level as their suburban counterparts, the Wage tax would not be necessary.
The historical reason that Philadelphia Real Estate taxes are as low as they are is EXACTLY that; the costs of running the City were transferred from Property Taxes to the Wage tax. And this was done for purely political reasons. Years ago, that made a perverted kind of sense -- Middle-class people still lived in the City and only the super-rich fat-cats lived in the suburbs and commuted to work downtown. Populist mayors kept the cost of living in the city low and "socked it to" the Rich living in the suburbs. Today, the dollars and the residents are in the suburbs, but those residents are no longer Republican Fat Cats, they are now middle-class Democrats. But the Mayors in the City have become addicted to the revenues generated by the wage tax, so they can't afford to eliminate the wage tax on non-residents. (I'm ignoring the City side of the argument -- the fact that the non-resident wage earners suck up some pretty serious City services, like Emergency services and the major costs associated with various EPA issues directly related to the automobiles associated with the commuters.)
The only reason that the suburbs do not have Wage Taxes of their own is because the State Legislature has reserved the ability to tax wages in that manner to Cities of the First and Second Class in the Commonwealth... Philadelphia and Pittsburgh.
Note that I am not in favor of the way EITHER the Wage tax or the Property Tax is imposed. Although I have less trouble with a flat tax (or at least what was a flat tax), like the wage tax than the current scheme of Property Taxes in Philadelphia. But that does not change the anathema with which the suburbs view the City Wage Tax. People moved to the suburbs to escape the city and its costs... only to discover that their costs do not go down.
T.T.F.N. William H. Magill [EMAIL PROTECTED] [EMAIL PROTECTED] [EMAIL PROTECTED]
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