Monday, September 17, 2007
More Complaints About $52 Tax
At the beginning of 2008, the collection of the $52 local services tax (the tax formerly known as the occupational privilege tax, and, for a brief stint, the Emergency and Municipal Services tax) will change, hopefully once and for all. When the tax was increased from $10 to a permissible $52 maximum, low wage workers saw their first paycheck of the year eaten away by a lump sum collection of the entire $52 annual levy. Ambulance service providers saw their donations dwindle because citizens thought the EMS tax was to benefit EMS providers (imagine that).
So the legislature revisited the tax, changed its name, elevated the income threshold, and stipulated that the tax would be collected $1 per week and remitted quarterly.
Now local officials, including some in Westmoreland County as evidenced in a recent newspaper article, are crying foul because of the administrative nightmares the new collection scheme would create and that the state is middling too much in local affairs. One official noted that his township “will suffer from this, but next year will show how much we will lose in revenues and whether the real estate tax will have to be raised to make up the difference.”
Really? Is it the township that suffers, or the taxpayer? This, and other statements, ignore all of the previous nightmares, particularly of those who saw their pay docked and may have never gotten a refund. In Pittsburgh, officials banked on the fact that by taking the tax all at once at the beginning of the year would ensure that workers—even those who should not pay the tax because of low income or because the City was not their primary place of residence—would not bother coming back for a refund at the end of the year.
Besides, if there is a drop in collections because of a more honest collection approach, the municipality should cover any revenue shortfall with spending cuts.
Let’s see how the new scheme works before tossing it out. After all, it is a matter of fairness to the people paying the tax, not those collecting it.
So the legislature revisited the tax, changed its name, elevated the income threshold, and stipulated that the tax would be collected $1 per week and remitted quarterly.
Now local officials, including some in Westmoreland County as evidenced in a recent newspaper article, are crying foul because of the administrative nightmares the new collection scheme would create and that the state is middling too much in local affairs. One official noted that his township “will suffer from this, but next year will show how much we will lose in revenues and whether the real estate tax will have to be raised to make up the difference.”
Really? Is it the township that suffers, or the taxpayer? This, and other statements, ignore all of the previous nightmares, particularly of those who saw their pay docked and may have never gotten a refund. In Pittsburgh, officials banked on the fact that by taking the tax all at once at the beginning of the year would ensure that workers—even those who should not pay the tax because of low income or because the City was not their primary place of residence—would not bother coming back for a refund at the end of the year.
Besides, if there is a drop in collections because of a more honest collection approach, the municipality should cover any revenue shortfall with spending cuts.
Let’s see how the new scheme works before tossing it out. After all, it is a matter of fairness to the people paying the tax, not those collecting it.
