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In a message dated 7/24/2003 12:34:05 PM Eastern Daylight Time, [EMAIL PROTECTED]
writes:
>
> On Thursday, July 24, 2003, at 06:52 AM, Herons wrote:
> >>> I know that within my own family, who all live out in various PA and
> >>> NJ
> > suburbs, I pay about 20% of what the LOWEST of their property taxes
> > happen to be! They can't believe how LOW my taxes are. This is also one
> > of the primary reasons why the Suburbs hate the City Wage Tax -- they
> > can easily see that Philadelphians are NOT paying their fair share.<<
> >
> > I think this line of reasoning mixes apples and kiwis. It would hold
> > up as
> > an argument if you compared, say, the total local tax burden on
> > like-situated individuals in both locations. For example, if you
> > compare the
> > sum of my property taxes as a Philadelphia homeowner, plus my wage
> > taxes as
> > a Philadelphia resident, to the sum of the local property taxes plus
> > commuter wage tax of a homeowner who lives in the suburbs and works in
> > the
> > City, you might see a different picture.
>
> Yes and no, but it is true ... it looks MUCH worse for the City
> resident when you pay close attention to the total tax picture. (We're
> talking about wage earners here, not the self-employed who have a whole
> different set of business taxes to deal with.)
>
Actually, the self-employed should be included here. While they do pay taxes on their
business' earnings, they also pay a "Net Profit" tax on what they personally take out
of the business (after the business taxes at local, state & federal levels), which is
effectively equivalent to the wage tax.
> Both the City and Suburban resident pay the same City Wage Tax.
> (Actually, the wage tax on Non-residents is slightly less than on
> Residents - 4.4 for Residents, 3.8 for Non-residents.)
>
> Both the City and Suburban resident pay the same State Sales tax, with
> the exception that if you make your purchase IN Philadelphia County,
> you pay an extra 1% to provide support for "tourism." (We can ignore
> the fact that money goes to buy the Eagles and Phillies each a new
> stadium and the Philadelphia Orchestra a new concert hall.)
>
> So that leaves the only difference between the City resident and the
> Suburban resident -- their Property Tax levy.
>
That's far from the only difference. What is being missed here is that many of the
services which City residents receive at no additional charge are treated as separate,
billable items in the suburbs. Many suburban residents, for instance, receive separate
billings for trash pickup from their local municipality. City residents receive this
as a part of their "package."
Similarly, a good percentage of suburban roads are state highways, and thus maintained
by the state; Philadelphia has far less support in this regard, because of its overall
larger number of streets, and has a long history of having those roads which ARE state
highways -- such as the portions of Walnut and Chestnut in W. Philly which are
actually State Route 3 -- being ignored by the state.
Since I'm not a suburban resident, I am probably missing many other things which they
pay for separately, and at a higher overall rate. But the general point stands:
comparing only taxes, and excluding other municipal services, provides a distorted
picture.
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