House Rejects Proposal to Eliminate School Property Tax

I have to admit...I'm confused. On one hand, we pay no property tax, but just a wee bit more in sales and income tax, benefiting retired and fixed-income households. Harrisburg then doles out the money to each and every school district equally (yeah, right). School districts can still impose an EIT to cover construction of new buildings, repairs and the like. On the other hand, 100% of our property tax dollars stay in our school district...Sounds like this tax reform bill is alot like act 72 and act 1. I'll pay my taxes, thank you.

Read on.

B.

Tuesday, January 29, 2008

By Tom Barnes, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

HARRISBURG -- State Rep. Sam Rohrer failed overwhelmingly today in his bid to radically reshape Pennsylvania's system of funding public education.

The House voted down, by a margin of 148-47, a proposal by the Berks County Republican to eliminate the current $10 billion in school property taxes and replace it with a higher personal income tax and by extending the 6 percent sales tax to many more professional services and products that are now exempt.

Mr. Rohrer argued, unsuccessfully, that Pennsylvania homeowners want a complete elimination of property taxes, not a partial reduction of several hundred dollars that will be done by using slots revenue and perhaps a modest increase in either sales or income taxes.

Since caskets and child care services would have been among the many items subject to the sales tax under Mr. Rohrer's plan, Rep. David Levdansky, D-Forward, said, "That plan would tax everything from day care to death.''

(editors note: that sounds like cradle to grave government interference in our lives)

Two other plans to reduce property taxes -- rather than completely eliminating them -- may be discussed in the House later today. Mr. Levdansky wants to increase the personal income tax rate to 3.29 percent from the current 3.07 rate and also increase the state sales tax by 0.5 percent. He would like to see that money used to reduce property taxes.

House Democratic leader Bill DeWeese of Waynesburg just wants to increase the sales tax by 0.5 percent.

The House is trying to complete action on some type of property tax relief before the end of January and send it over to the Senate.