Today's episode of "Issues Forums" takes on one of the city's oldest and most confounding issues - Texas... I mean taxes.
Brett Mandel is the executive director of Philadelphia Forward, a non-profit, advocacy group devoted to ethics, tax and budget reform. Rob Dubow is the executive director of the Pennsylvania Intergovernmental Cooperation Authority, the agency that has overseen the city's finances since the state bailout in 1991. Ellen Yin is the owner of Fork Restaurant. As a small business owner, she's dealt with her fair share of the wage, business and real estate taxes and offers her perspective.
They tell The Next Mayor about the problems created by the way Philadelphia uses taxes and the city's relatively high tax rates. They also warn of impending budgetary problems that must be considered when the next mayor deals with tax reform.
For ships and giggles (that's the phrase, right?) let's take a walk down memory lane and look at the history of one of Philadelphia's favorite taxes, the wage tax. (Compliments of the Economy League of Greater Philadelphia). Here's my favorite historical quote about the wage tax:
On September 29, 1961, the Philadelphia Bulletin wrote, “There is always the danger of pegging the wage tax at so high a rate that it would drive small businessmen and professional people out of the city. But no one expects it to go that high.”
There seems to be less talk about the wage tax these days. The focus has been on the Business Privilege Tax and, to some extent, real estate taxation. (For readers who take issue with Philadelphia Forward's point of view, here's information about the Full Value Real Estate Reassessment from the Pennsylvania Intergovernmental Cooperation Authority.)
Finally, what are the candidates saying about this issue?
As we saw during the spring primary, Michael Nutter put out policy papers on every issue under the sun. Here's the one that deals with budgeting (page 7 talks about taxes).
On Taubenberger's website, we get... this. Though, to his credit, Taubenberger did put out this statement regarding the city budget and he did appear with Nutter at an event at which both agreed that the scheduled BPT cuts need to continue.