Issue Position: Property Tax Relief

Issue Position

I will fight for comprehensive tax reform that immediately reduces school property taxes and lessens the burden on working families. Pennsylvania has one of the worst tax systems in the country, placing a much higher tax burden on the middle class and low-income wage earners than on the highest income earners. We simply need a system that is less unfair.

High property taxes are a huge burden on the homeowners and senior citizens of our region. I will fight for immediate property tax relief that starts with enacting a severance tax on the gas drillers. Every other state with gas and oil drilling has a severance tax. Hundreds of millions of dollars can be put towards funding our underfunded schools and reducing our school property taxes. I will support tax rebates for seniors on fixed incomes to help them stay in their homes.

Taxes can only be reduced by either shifting the tax burden to another source, by increasing tax revenues through economic stimulus, or by cutting government expenditures and waste. We need a comprehensive and equitable approach that includes each of these aspects. The problem with the failed property tax reform legislation of the past 20 years is that the tax burden is always shifted more to middle income wage earners, while taking control away from local school districts.

Pennsylvania needs to eliminate the Delaware loophole, where three quarters of corporations now pay no income tax to the state. At the same time, we have one of the highest corporate tax rates in the country at 9.99%. By eliminating the corporate tax loophole and lowering the corporate tax rate to 7.99%, Pennsylvania can generate hundreds of millions of dollars in additional tax revenue, while also attracting new business to the state with the lower tax rate.

The school funding formula in Pennsylvania is our biggest problem, where the highest funded schools can receive as much as five times the state funding as the lowest funded schools. Only 30 of the 501 school districts in Pennsylvania are severely underfunded. A one-size-fits-all property tax reform is a bad approach that does not address the core problem of inequitable funding. Therefore, we need a comprehensive approach to tax reform that delivers equitable school funding.

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