Are you in favor of this plan to eliminate school property taxes?

25 Comments

  • Joe - 12 years ago

    I am extremely excited for this legislation. It is about time EVERYONE pays for public education.

    And to those who are concerned about their wealthy school districts who feel they will have reduced funding, I believe you are more than welcome to have fundraisers and seek donations to school operations. If your residents are that concerned I am sure they will voluntarily open their bottomless check books.

    Come on Pennsylvania Legislators and actually do something that will benefit the people!!

  • Hobb53 - 12 years ago

    In all fairness farm owners like myself bear the greatest burden with property taxes. Even though we have no children in school and are hurting financially just as much as others, we are expected to fund those families who have many children of school-age. Some of these families may even rent and therefore pay nothing in property tax. It is most fair and logical to fund schools through the proposed modest .9% income tax increase plus a 1% increase in sales tax. Under this plan everyone will share the burden of paying for our schools. It will also force the school boards to become more accountable to the public in how it funds various programs and sports.

  • Momofseven - 12 years ago

    If this passes, which it ought to, I will be surprised and very pleased. Of course public schools must be funded; but since our children are educated at home, I have learned that an excellent education can be had for much less than our local schools use per student. (That is an understatement.) There is much excess and throwing more money at the schools in the name of education is a waste. More can be done with less. I can hardly believe the great burden of our property tax may actually be lifted from our tired backs! As for increasing sales taxes, that won't much affect those like me who buy second hand clothes and used appliances.

  • PADad - 12 years ago

    This proposal is fair all the way around. If you are low income, 1% sales tax increase will not hurt you at all. Also , think of all the money that will be generated by NON PA people coming into our state and buying goods. Believe me, this will help alot of people in this state with day to day purchases and fixes. It will put alot of money into alot of peoples pockets. This will help businesses hire more people and I believe this will make PA strong.

  • David - 12 years ago

    Yes the devil is in the details, however the Pennsylvania Taxpayers Cyber Coalition has independent studies indicating this bill would in fact work and may generate a surplus. I moved here from Maryland and my taxes have about TRIPLED because of school tax. Pennsylvania is not a tax friendly state to live in or have a business. We need to support this bill.

  • Mark Kershner - 12 years ago

    I hope this finally happens! I also Agree with the fact that there is to much money spent on sports at the school it schould go towards academics as #1 priority .I also was planning to retire in Delaware where this is no property tax and no sales tax WOW why doesn't someone ask how they do it and adopt those policies. I also feel if the schools would have to go through the state things might not be so lavish . we never had Air conditioning at school , no carpeted floors. no lighted stadiums ect.ect. ect. But I also feel the biggest group of people to fight this will be teachers union because they would have to go through state for raises and benifits

  • Jose Ramirez - 12 years ago

    Talk about fairness....I pay about $500 per MONTH in school taxes. I don't make over $100,000 per year, never have had and never will have children attending a local school district. My home is nothing special....about 2400 sq ft on 3 acres. Property taxes are affecting my ability to save for any kind of retirement....my home value is stagnant to declining and you FOOLS are calling someone in my boat "rich". I'm tempted to sell out and rent someplace....American home ownership is getting killed by this foolish tax. The slight increase to the sales tax with a few more items added to the taxable items along with a

  • Roger Scott - 12 years ago

    If anyone is against eliminating the school property tax they should have their heads examined. This is the best way to provide adequate (not lavish) funding for all the schools in Pennsylvania on an equal basis. The first thing I'm going to do when this bill passes is cancel my trip to Delaware to look at houses.

  • Greg - 12 years ago

    My summary point to everything I wrote above is actually simple. This is a very incomplete story. It "sounds" nice in theory. But as with anything there are winners and losers. Yet they're painting this as everyone comes out ahead. That's simply, mathmatically impossible! So who ends up paying more? it's going to be those that rely MOST on work-earned income. And that's the middle class. You're looking at your $3,500 tax bill for schools annually (I'm using my Wilson SD one from 2011-2012 as an example) and going "wow, this will be way better for me!" No it won't. The math as it's presented DOES NOT WORK. There's much more in the way of tax increases or missing components they're not talking about. Also, since there are no more safeguards to protect your school's current funding in the new system, you middle class people who think you moved somewhere for a 'good school' will be in for a rude awakening when they 'redistribute' the costs across the board to make per pupil spending more 'equitable.' Who do you think is going to lose? And your local district will have NO WAY to make up for that funding decrease. It might seem more 'fair' (I guess it is), but remember you chose to love where you live for your schools. And that oversight in spending will be stripped from you. Good luck with it. If this passes, those with the means to leave PA likely will.

  • Greg - 12 years ago

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    services, goods, etc. Point is: this is an incomplete story. And no one has called that out yet.

    Finally, the same way school taxes seem to increase with reckless abandon now, what’s to say they can’t hike the income tax every year too? People always assumed incomes rose so you could keep taxes flat and collect more money. But that’s not the case anymore and hasn’t been for over a decade. Taxes will still increase annually. And with a “flat tax” in PA, they will increase on the poor and middle class the most. Will anything keep school funding at current rates? How will Wilson and Wyomissing schools be able to keep paying for their services when the state is doling out who gets what? “Richer” districts will certainly see cuts. Those of you who think you live in a desirable area with good schools now, just wait and see what happens when funding per pupil drops 20%.

    There’s much to be answered yet. Read. Think. Study. Question.

  • Greg - 12 years ago

    This is nothing but a smokescreen for wealth transfer to the top of the food chain. Think about it. The primary owners of property -- and nice/substantial property -- are the wealthy. They'll benefit the most by far. And all you middle class voters out there who think “this is for me!” just go ahead and keep pulling for these items that are slowly but surely destroying your lifestyle and making it almost impossible for your kids to get ahead.

    It also penalizes those who get by on income and not pensions and investments. In other words: those who work hard for what they have now (you know, the middle class?). Taxing income and not wealth is always sold to the middle class as ‘fair’ but it isn’t. Most real wealth in this country is derived from investment holdings and real estate. Not income. Keep shifting the taxes to income and you keep sheltering those who ironically can afford to pay the most.

    I don't know who did the math for this thing from the Reading Eagle (let's face it, Mary Young is not the brightest bulb in the box and tends to regurgitate anything her right-wing friends say – the one article reads like a pamphlet written for her to reprint with no investigative journalism or analysis applied), but as a financial analyst with a degree in accounting I can tell you the math is a combination of incorrect and incomplete.

    Let's address the latter first. I can't help but notice no one from the legislature has gone on the record to describe what additional items will actually be taxed. This is not just a 1% sales tax increase (from 6% to 7%), it's potentially a 7% tax increase on a lot of items you purchase every day that you don't currently pay tax on. The largest item is food (excluding soda and alcohol which are taxed). Check your family grocery bill. I bet it's gone up quite a bit in the last three years. Now add another 7% to that. Wow, huh? Sure, some politicians have said they'll exclude food items, but that's NOT set in stone. And I can't help but notice how coy they're being with regard to what's actually on the "let's tax this!" list.

    Now let's address the math portion of things. Do we really think that just adding 1% to the tax rate and raising the personal income tax a little less than 1% will cover the funds lost from property tax? It won’t. So there’s something either being hidden… or the Taxpayers’ Coalitions have people who can’t do basic research and math. Some simple statistics I was able to gather from a few minutes of research on the web: PA has a total annual “money income” somewhere in the $300b range per year (per 2010 census statistics). A decent amount of that is probably not even earned income (and therefore not taxable – i.e.: investment income or pension/SS income). But let’s pretend it all is to do a “best case” scenario. They’re only going to raise the income tax from 3.07% to 3.99%. That 0.92% increase would yield – at most – an extra $2.8b or so. Based on current sales tax collection rates (available on the PA Dept of Rev website) raising the tax on items already taxed would yield about another $1.5b in income. So we’re up to $4.3b so far. The school funding amount is $24b per the paper (it’s actually closer to $26b per state records). Local property and income taxes currently fund about 40% of that. So about $10b has to be replaced. As you can see, $4.3b comes nowhere near replacing $10b. Where does the other $5.7b come from? Maybe that’s the food budget I spoke of earlier. Maybe it’s a miscalculation as to how high they’ll actually have to raise income and sales taxes on people when they enact this proposal. $5.7b is a lot of extra money. With 5.7m households, that’s additional $1,000 per household not accounted for. But for that to work there’s have to be a 7% tax levied on an additional $14,000 worth of currently untaxed items per year per household. I doubt most households even spend an additional $14,000 per year in untaxed food, s

  • Rich - 12 years ago

    Wally: You completely missed the point! You would have to spend $28,500 on newly-taxed items ands services at a 7% sales tax rate to equal the $2000 in eliminated property tax. It DOESN'T mean you would pay $28,500 in new taxes! How likely is it that you will spend an additional $28,500 on newly-taxed items?

    SteveO: Each school district will be responsible for financing its own construction through a taxpayer referendum for a local earned income tax. The burden of new construction will not be placed on all of the state's taxpayers.

    And, finally, Steve: The property tax is an inequitable throwback to feudal England that has no place in today's society. There is no other tax that can take your home and throw you on the street. And the tax is killing Pennsylvania's economy and driving away it residents. Read the facts on the "Ten Reasons" page at www.ptcc.us.

  • Madphule - 12 years ago

    I know this is a hot button topic and I can appreciate the need for lower taxes, but let us not forget what this tax is for (if spent properly) it pay for the education of the next generation. We look at the world stage and see we are falling behind and ask "why are we not properly educating our children?" but then expect the public schools to perform miracles with little to no resources.

    For the most part we were all educated by the taxes of those that came before us, if you were able to afford private school or dropped out I will concede your viewpoint is different.

    If we continue to pay our teachers less and let our facilities fall in to ruin, with 20+ year old technology; we will loose our future.

    I too hated paying the tax when I did not have a child in school, it was difficult to pay and often felt like a burden I could not carry. But you must think of the actual use of this tax.

    Taxes that are for schools and roads that are handled properly are in our best interest.

    I believe that if tax money was properly used by all levels of government and evenly collected the overall tax burden would drop, but that is a "perfect" world. We live in a world of governmental corruption where the money is misappropriation and misused, requiring a greater and greater burden with no increase in service. We occupy Wall Street calling Corporations Greedy, but what do you expect from a machine that is driven by profit; do we blame the alligator that bites the pray that comes within its reach? This is not said to excuse them, but more of a "Do we really expect them to act outside their nature?" We concentrate on them, yet the greed in government is much more abhorrent. They are to be looking out for our best interest; rob us blind, and we continue to empower them!

    I don't mean to say that the local offices that handle the school tax are necessarily corrupt; For this, I do not have enough facts. But as a generalization of the US government system.

  • retired and over taxed - 12 years ago

    It is a good move to try to eliminate this tax in favor of raising the sales tax. The elderly are burdened by school taxes, and have a fixed income, we are retired and over half of my annual social security check goes to pay school and property taxes. I think that we should be more motivated to educate our children, not provide them with so much for "sports" have you seen the playing fields around Pa.?

  • Mike - 12 years ago

    And while they're at it, eliminate tax payer $$ going to sports activities at highschools, including construction of football fields, bleachers, lights, etc. Put it into hiring more science and math teachers. I know, I know...not a popular thing, but while you parents who are saying "hoo-ra! for my kids football team," some Chinese parent is standing over their 9th grader making sure he/she is studying physics.

  • Frances - 12 years ago

    ...and how is this fair to those of us who do not own property or have kids in the schools? I once had both, paid my taxes, and now live on a fixed - and low - income in a rented property. Is anyone talking about how this will be better for me, or at least fair? Those of you who own homes have the luxury of knowing you are investing in something that will eventually pay you back. THAT is your reward....you just have to wait a bit for it. Why should I pay for your kids?

  • Hard Worker - 12 years ago

    I live in the Reading school district and would never send my children to that school. I work hard and pay a ton of money to a school I would not utilize. Those who rent and the numbers are HUGE do not pay the school taxes but send many children to that school. How does that help? Eliminate the school property taxes and make everyone pay taxes as this proposal states. This puts the responsibility on everyone equally.

  • Krys - 12 years ago

    It's not about being self-centered, money grabbing fools, it's about barely making ends meet & needing every cent we can to stay afloat. Maybe some people are well off enough to be able to spend that chunk of change every year, but honestly, we could stand to have our mortgage a bit lower, so that we don't have to worry about where the next meal is coming from.

    It's sad when people try to prove their point by throwing insults around.

    Our future has been bleak for quite a while now & the taxes are just one more needle in the haystack. In all honesty, we need to completely wipe our government out & replace it with a new system that works for the people & by the people.

  • Pete Gustis - 12 years ago

    Wally,

    Taxing everyone a smaller amount, make it so home owners only are not paying the burden for school tax. you will be paying less than 2000 a year in tax.

  • SteveO - 12 years ago

    As it stands right now if another district wants to build a new school it doesn't affect me because I don't live in that district; it only affects the people who will actually use the new facility. Therefore they will pay to have the new school built. If you eliminate property taxes everyone will have to pay for the new school whether it's in their district or not. How is a school board going to be able to okay a new facility knowing it isn't just their district's money they're spending?

  • Steve - 12 years ago

    If we continue to remove every tax eventually we're going to end up with no society at all. Yes, we all hate losing money, but taxes keep our society in place. Is education of our children really this unimportant to everyone? Self-centered, money-grabbing fools you are, each and everyone of you. We have a bleak future of every-man-for-himself coming.

  • Wally - 12 years ago

    to have the school districts break even, people have to spend an additional $28,500 to replace the $2,000 property tax they currently pay. I might find it easier to find the $2,000 than to find the $28,500 in additional spending.

    Who came up with plan? Bernie Madoff???

  • Jose Ramirez - 12 years ago

    many hands make light work.....

  • Christine Kramlich - 12 years ago

    Eliminating the school tax would drop my mortgage payment by nearly 50% which of course I would support. It would free up my income to spend on goods here in PA and also allow me to cut my mortgage loan term from 30 years to 15 years. This would also contribute to better home sales in PA which in turn helps our state economy.

    PA legislators, please stop blowing smoke up our bums and get this passed!! I frankly am tired of my school district of having my bank account and me by the you know what!

  • Pete Gorney - 12 years ago

    This may keep older people from moving away after retirement to spend their monies eleswhere without having a house payment( ie. school taxes ) after their houses are paid for!

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