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Old 12-23-2012, 07:18 AM
 
Location: I live wherever I am.
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I read not long ago that most, but not all, of Pennsylvania's municipalities / school districts levy a local income tax of sorts... by an earned income tax and/or a local services tax.

Are there any locations in PA that do not have this tax in either form? After all, who really wants to pay a local income tax when they're already filling out forms for, and paying, federal AND state income tax?
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Old 12-23-2012, 08:27 PM
 
Location: Montgomery County, PA
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Actually, I don't think there are whole lot of places with local income tax like Philly. We had a bizarre per capita tax in Upper Providence township but that wasn't a lot. I suspect there are townships with personal property tax.
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Old 12-24-2012, 10:14 AM
 
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Municipal Statistics Tax Reports
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Old 12-24-2012, 02:22 PM
 
Location: I live wherever I am.
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Quote:
Originally Posted by kanling View Post
Reading that in its entirety would take too long. Figured some people might have this information handy. I've seen that report before.
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Old 12-24-2012, 04:54 PM
 
Location: Berwick, Penna.
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OK ... here goes.

What you refer to as "local income tax" is also called a "wage tex" because it is levied on wages, salaries and net income from self-employment. It is not levied in interest, dividends, capital gains or all the various transfer payments like Social Security, Unemploymenr Compensation, etc, and some localites exempt retirees, students, etc, whose income falls below a certain threshold.

With some ezceptiions such as Philadelphia, the tax was usually levied at 1 percent -- half for the municipality (city, borough or township, but not the surrounding county) and the other half for the school district. As more of the state's smaller cities have fallen on hard times, they have been permitted to taise their rates which, of course, also has the effect of driving more business out of town. I'm not sure whether any of these revenues are allotted toward the "regional" police forces which have emerged in some counties.

"Local services tax" is a flat tax ($52, if memory serves me correctly) levied on the same classes of income listed above, but to support fire protection, ambulances, paramedics, etc. Communities with a large seasonal/transient work force sometimes collect it in weekly $2 installments, with the unpaid portion simply forgotten if the casual worker moves on.

The local income tax is deductible against your Federal Income Tax if you itemize, but the Emergency Services tax is not. Responsibility for collecting these taxes might rest with the locality, or an independent contractor such as Berkheimer, Don Wilkinson, or Central Tax Bureau may be retained by the local municipality. I'm not aware of any locality which does not impose these levies.

Last edited by 2nd trick op; 12-24-2012 at 05:42 PM..
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Old 12-25-2012, 02:40 PM
 
Location: I live wherever I am.
1,935 posts, read 4,752,167 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by 2nd trick op View Post
OK ... here goes.

What you refer to as "local income tax" is also called a "wage tex" because it is levied on wages, salaries and net income from self-employment. It is not levied in interest, dividends, capital gains or all the various transfer payments like Social Security, Unemploymenr Compensation, etc, and some localites exempt retirees, students, etc, whose income falls below a certain threshold.

With some ezceptiions such as Philadelphia, the tax was usually levied at 1 percent -- half for the municipality (city, borough or township, but not the surrounding county) and the other half for the school district. As more of the state's smaller cities have fallen on hard times, they have been permitted to taise their rates which, of course, also has the effect of driving more business out of town. I'm not sure whether any of these revenues are allotted toward the "regional" police forces which have emerged in some counties.

"Local services tax" is a flat tax ($52, if memory serves me correctly) levied on the same classes of income listed above, but to support fire protection, ambulances, paramedics, etc. Communities with a large seasonal/transient work force sometimes collect it in weekly $2 installments, with the unpaid portion simply forgotten if the casual worker moves on.

The local income tax is deductible against your Federal Income Tax if you itemize, but the Emergency Services tax is not. Responsibility for collecting these taxes might rest with the locality, or an independent contractor such as Berkheimer, Don Wilkinson, or Central Tax Bureau may be retained by the local municipality. I'm not aware of any locality which does not impose these levies.
I had to deal with Berkheimer when I lived in Shenandoah and I must say, I HATED those blankety-blanks. What a bunch of low-life scum! Constantly coming after me for this tax and that tax which I never even knew I owed... and even when I paid the taxes upon getting the request, they'd send multiple requests and charge me $12.50 per request! I eventually had to get on the phone with them and give them you-know-what so that they'd leave me alone. If I ever move back to PA, I WILL NOT move to a town serviced by Berkheimer.
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Old 12-25-2012, 02:52 PM
 
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Regardless of where you live in PA and if where you live has a local wage tax, if you are employed in PA, your employer is now required to withhold at the rate where you work or where you live - which ever is higher. So, you could have a zero local tax where you live, but, have a local tax rate of 1% where you work. If you don't have a local tax where you live, the municipality where you work gets to keep the money collected.

The LST maxium of $52 ( unless the municipality where you work has a lower LST) is based upon where you work in PA.

If you live in PA and work for an employer in PA they are now required to withhold the EIT (earned income tax - also called local tax) from your paycheck as well as the LST tax. The only way you could avoid these taxes is if you happened to live and work in a PA municpality that did not have any tax - and that would be hard to find.

Mary2014
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Old 12-25-2012, 04:19 PM
 
Location: On the Chesapeake
44,875 posts, read 59,846,876 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by RomaniGypsy View Post
I had to deal with Berkheimer when I lived in Shenandoah and I must say, I HATED those blankety-blanks. What a bunch of low-life scum! Constantly coming after me for this tax and that tax which I never even knew I owed... and even when I paid the taxes upon getting the request, they'd send multiple requests and charge me $12.50 per request! I eventually had to get on the phone with them and give them you-know-what so that they'd leave me alone. If I ever move back to PA, I WILL NOT move to a town serviced by Berkheimer.
Berkheimer has replaced CenTax (Central Tax Agency) in most areas. It was collecting taxes but not remitting them to the jurisdictions. It's now in receivership.

In Centax's wake, municipalities struggle with tax money - News - Citizens' Voice

Centax assets seized
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Old 12-27-2012, 01:33 PM
 
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How dare a place come after taxes that you owe just because you didnt bother to find out what you owe. The nerve
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Old 12-27-2012, 04:49 PM
 
1,677 posts, read 2,523,923 times
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Originally Posted by sonofagunk View Post
How dare a place come after taxes that you owe just because you didnt bother to find out what you owe. The nerve
I don't mind paying taxes I owe, but, Berkheimer tried garnishing my wages for the LST tax (it is based upon where you work) in 2010 for 2008, 2009 and 2010 in a township where I had not worked since 2003 ( I had run my own business in the township from 1985 - 2003.) The LST tax was new in 2008 and if they ever did try to contact me at the business name and address in that township the mail would have been returned because someone else now owned the business. They never tried to contact me at my home address. They never tried cross matching my name and ss# to see that I was paying LST tax to a different township where I had worked since 2004 and was paying it to Berkheimer!

Lucky for me I do the accounting work for my present employer and when that garnishment noticed came in I hit the roof! They could not explain why or how it happened and why I had not been contacted in 2008, 2009 or 2010 to issue me a warning that it had not been paid. But, they sure managed to find me and send a garnishment notice to my current employer with all sorts of extra fees attached for non payment! It took me only one day to get them to resind the garnishment notice, but, 8 weeks for them to correct my records and get the invalid charges off of my account for each year. I insisted on documentation in writing confirming that each year had been cleared and the account had been closed because I had never worked in that township after 2003. (I also contacted the particular township and they had no clue how or why Berkheimer would have tried to collect the tax from me because their records indicated that the business was no longer owned by me.)

The present township where I continue to work dropped Berkheimer in the 3rd qtr of 2010 and switched to someone else - so I no longer have to deal with them. I can only imagine the nightmare the average employee (without the specific tax knowledge I have) would have run into trying to get something like this corrected!

Mary2014
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