The City government of Philadelphia is downright hostile to even the idea of economic growth. Philadelphia’s various mix of business and individual tax burdens are ranked among the highest in the nation in almost every area of tax policy. From city-wage taxes, real estate transfer fees and the ever so arrogantly named business privilege tax. Philadelphia’s BPT is currently 6.5 percent of a business’s gross profits, but even if a business posts a loss they are still required to pay .19 percent fee.
But .19 percent of what? This is the economic equivalent of seriously trying to get blood from a stone. It’s working, the results of this dysfunctional economic policy has been the loss of about 250,000 jobs over a 40 year period that’s 6250 jobs per. You can look at the employment number two ways. One is to say that 6250 people lose their jobs every year, The other is to say that a good percentage of those people are middle class small business owners that have been chased from the city by what has become a confiscatory fiefdom. This is evidence not only in Philadelphia’s decreasing revenues but from it’s population decrease of more than a half of a million people over that same 40 year period. And it is not the evil rich who are fleeing, ironically they seem rather happy in Philly, however nearly half of the cities citizens live below the poverty line.
They are getting blood from a stone, Philadelphia is hemorrhaging it middle-class work force & entrepreneurs by taxing itself out of competition with more business friendly counties and cities. So what is Mayor Nutters proposal to stop the bleeding? More taxation. The Mayor has proposed both a 2cent per ounce tax on all beverages with added sugar and an annual fee for waste removal up to $300.00 per family. The sugar tax is completely regressive and will only drive up the price of services at all of Philadelphia’s eateries, they even want to tax chocolate milk. 2 cents per ounce doesn’t sound like much but add that to the city sales tax and you add 1.50 to one 2 liter bottle of soda and 32 cents to 16 ounces of whatever your sweet beverage of choice maybe. This hurts everyone from the local pizzerias who buy in bulk to a little kid scrounging up 4 quarters to get a Yoo-Hoo. Of course this is proposed as some sort of health initiative to save the children from obesity. If the city were really interested in the health of it’s citizens it would give tax incentives like deductions for gym memberships and sports equipment when you sign your children up for youth athletics.
And as for the waste removal fee, politicians like councilman Curtis Jones of the 4th district has been quoted as saying “if we want the streets cleaned we have to pay for that” and council majority leader Marion Tasco been quoted as saying “you cant have it both ways if you want something you have to pay for it.” That is almost comical coming from a group of politicians who have found themselves with a 150 million dollar budget gap. With many of Philadelphia political heavies sweet on the notion it is possible that some version of this may come to be.
According to Mayor Nutter this fee will help to close the budget gap and promote recycling and other new programs. How do you fill a budget gap by spending the theoretical new revenue on new programs? But the more important question is what exactly have the citizens of Philadelphia been paying for up until this point?
