A citizen led group in northeastern Pennsylvania is taking up the banner of complete property tax elimination–not just school property taxes for homeowners, and not just school, county, and municipal property taxes for homeowners–but apparently everything across the board for all classes of property. As a newspaper piece put it, “The Luzerne County organization CAP Taxes — Citizens Against Property Taxes — wants to see the elimination of all property taxes. Not a reduction, or an adjustment. They want property taxes E-L-I-M-N-A-T-E-D.”
They are pointing out that there would have to be a tax shift–income and sales taxes would have to rise in order to eliminate property taxes. As we noted in 2014, to eliminate property taxes to fund schools (around $11 billion) the sales tax would have to increase 1 point and the income tax 1.27 points according to one group pushing for complete school tax elimination. The sales tax would also have to be extended to additional items. A 2006 study by the Commonwealth estimated that the amount of county, municipal, and school taxes paid by all classes of property (in 2006-07) was $14 billion, and about half of that from homestead property and estimated what was collected via sales and income taxes in order to replace homestead property taxes.
Obviously to wipe out all property taxes would take hikes of a more significant level to income and sales, and probably on a host of other taxes that would apply to non-residential classes of property that pay property taxes to the taxing bodies.
