(Wendy edited to expand a bit - W)
Where's taxes in this race?
Jon Stein, head of Community Legal Services an advocate on behalf of Public Benefits and Welfare Law at Community Legal Services -- and even more interesting because he served on the Tax Reform Commission and came to sign on to its manifesto for reformed, and lowered, taxes -- has sent us an e-mail in which he says Nutter is really the only candidate out front on tax cuts. Tom Knox, though a businessman, isn't.
Myself, I went and looked at what the candidates have said. Nutter does call for continuing the reductions to the Wage Tax, for gradually eliminating the Gross Receipts portion of the Business Privilege Tax over a five-to-seven year period, and for reducing the Net Income portion of the BPT to the current rate of the Wage Tax -- among other reforms. Read his plan here.
Fattah's fiscal stability plan calls for replacing the Business Privilege Tax with a Net Profits Charge -- and he said he'd do it in his first budget if elected mayor. He supports continued reduction of the wage tax. He also suggests luring new business by offering established businesses, with five or more employees, the option of paying the same local taxes paid to its prior jurisdiction for the first five years it operates in Philadelphia.
Evans says in his workforce plan that he's committed to wage tax cuts and that he would "look to" the work of the Tax Reform Commission for other ways to make city taxes "fair and balanced."
Please discuss.
And what about ethics?
There's the RESULTS of the R.E.F.O.R.M. ballot, which are out today. Now, this is one handy chart. It shows exactly what the candidates think about each of the suggested reforms -- and there are additional charts for City Council as well.
Comments (3)
They don't have Nutter down as supporting a reduction in the wage tax. That is an error.
Posted by Observer | May 8, 2007 12:51 PM
Jon Stein is not the head of CLS.
Posted by LS | May 8, 2007 1:21 PM
Notice that Fattah is against "fixing PGW to make it work", eliminating the BPT, and reforming governance in the PD to decrease crime.
Gotta love that guy.
Posted by Marc | May 10, 2007 11:57 AM