PA in the top 10 highest taxes. Add that to our school tax in Allegheny C. Ouch!

[Debbie1125]

Originally Posted by hempfield mania

Good article (although long), on why PA's tax climate, esp. for businesses, is horrible.

Again, no wonder businesses don't want to relocate to PA. When you have to "bribe" companies to stay here or to bring them here in the first place with large abatements or other "tricks," you are doing something wrong.

Exactly. Not sure of how business friendly the city of Pittsburgh is, but Philadelphia slaps businesses with high taxes. It's one of the reasons unemployment here continues to hover around 11%.

In fact when Rendell was governor, he gave $60 million to Comcast to stay in the city.

Pennsylvania has to do something to make it less expensive to do business here, or the state will lose more jobs.

[mike02]

Originally Posted by Debbie1125

Exactly. Not sure of how business friendly the city of Pittsburgh is, but Philadelphia slaps businesses with high taxes. It's one of the reasons unemployment here continues to hover around 11%.

In fact when Rendell was governor, he gave $60 million to Comcast to stay in the city.

Pennsylvania has to do something to make it less expensive to do business here, or the state will lose more jobs.

It's not just the local/state/fed tax structure that can affect the growth of businesses and jobs in an area... it's also the regulation. You have to factor in the city of Pittsburgh's regulations/licensing requirements and both state and fed regulatory agencies. You really need a hell of a good lawyer to open up a small business these days

But, certain political groups will claim it's free market capitalism and greedy corporations that is to blame. How about our tax structure? How about the effects of regulation? Corruption in government? Ever hear of "corporatism?"

[Mr. Mon]

Originally Posted by hempfield mania

Good article (although long), on why PA's tax climate, esp. for businesses, is horrible.

Pennsylvania deemed


Just a snippet:

The Tax Foundation addresses that issue as well as others that affect businesses its own study, the State Business Tax Climate Index.

“We find that Pennsylvania, in our study, ranks in the middle of the pack, not quite as bad as the CEO magazine study,” says Robyn. “Pennsylvania also has one of the highest corporate income tax statutory rates in the nation, second highest nationally. But if you account for federal deductibility, viewed Pennsylvania as its own nation and include the federal corporate income tax, Pennsylvania would have the highest corporate income tax rate in the world when you add federal and state together.”

Again, no wonder businesses don't want to relocate to PA. When you have to "bribe" companies to stay here or to bring them here in the first place with large abatements or other "tricks," you are doing something wrong.

I'll not defend Pennsylvania's regulatory and tax policies as they are indeed cumbersome and needlessly inefficient when it comes to enforcement and compliance. However, after reading the opinion piece you linked to it seems that corporate tax rates are not the real things keeping PA from becoming a business paradise. Eliminating worker's ability to organize and loosening regulations on staffing agencies were the two big "reforms" sited in that piece and having lived and worked in states where this happened I can say that the quality of life for workers in PA is much higher than that in those states. Take a look around some of the other forums sometime and read the posts from people rushing to apply for jobs through staffing agencies for $10/hour that offer no benefits or promise of full-time employment.

So while super low taxes to and little regulation may work in attracting manufacturing it does not offer the infrastructure necessary to attract and retain a quality workforce Nor is it a sustainable model for how to run a government as was demonstrated by the massive deficits the low tax states are facing.

[Lobick]

Originally Posted by hempfield mania

Good article (although long), on why PA's tax climate, esp. for businesses, is horrible.

Pennsylvania deemed


Just a snippet:

The Tax Foundation addresses that issue as well as others that affect businesses its own study, the State Business Tax Climate Index.

“We find that Pennsylvania, in our study, ranks in the middle of the pack, not quite as bad as the CEO magazine study,” says Robyn. “Pennsylvania also has one of the highest corporate income tax statutory rates in the nation, second highest nationally. But if you account for federal deductibility, viewed Pennsylvania as its own nation and include the federal corporate income tax, Pennsylvania would have the highest corporate income tax rate in the world when you add federal and state together.”

Again, no wonder businesses don't want to relocate to PA. When you have to "bribe" companies to stay here or to bring them here in the first place with large abatements or other "tricks," you are doing something wrong.

You really should re-read the above quote that you posted. It spells out that the methodologically based study (linked previously by me in this thread) puts PA is in the middle of the pack in terms of tax burden on business but the perception among many (you included) is that's it's worse than that. No doubt, continually bemoaning PA's nominal corporate tax rate is part of this and leads to the continuing mis-perception.

Additionally, I guess one man's bribe is another's smart tax policy. If you don't believe that some of the tax policies that put states at the top of these rankings are bribery/ corporate welfare by another name, I think you're willfully deluding yourself. All states participate in this game of special benefits and abatements.

Honestly, I think right in the middle is probably the sweet spot for any state to be in.

[UKyank]

Originally Posted by Mr. Mon

Take a look around some of the other forums sometime and read the posts from people rushing to apply for jobs through staffing agencies for $10/hour that offer no benefits or promise of full-time employment.

There's more then enough of these 'positions' here too

[hempfield mania]

Originally Posted by Lobick

You really should re-read the above quote that you posted. It spells out that the methodologically based study (linked previously by me in this thread) puts PA is in the middle of the pack in terms of tax burden on business but the perception among many (you included) is that's it's worse than that. No doubt, continually bemoaning PA's nominal corporate tax rate is part of this and leads to the continuing mis-perception.

Additionally, I guess one man's bribe is another's smart tax policy. If you don't believe that some of the tax policies that put states at the top of these rankings are bribery/ corporate welfare by another name, I think you're willfully deluding yourself. All states participate in this game of special benefits and abatements.

Honestly, I think right in the middle is probably the sweet spot for any state to be in.

As much as the "methodologically based study" as you put it puts PA in the "middle of the pack", the other surveys of the people that actually matter (CEO's, directors, owners) rate PA rather low and guess what, those are the people that actually make the decisions. In this case, perception is their reality and in that same " methodologically based study", the bolded text from my initial detailed post states that if you combine corporations combined PA and federal net income tax liabilities, PA is rated the worst location IN THE WORLD.

[Mr. Mon]

Originally Posted by hempfield mania

As much as the "methodologically based study" as you put it puts PA in the "middle of the pack", the other surveys of the people that actually matter (CEO's, directors, owners) rate PA rather low and guess what, those are the people that actually make the decisions. In this case, perception is their reality and in that same " methodologically based study", the bolded text from my initial detailed post states that if you combine corporations combined PA and federal net income tax liabilities, PA is rated the worst location IN THE WORLD. But yeah, just glossing over that fact would be par for the course...

Tax and spend liberals, god bless your feeble little souls...

So, let's say corporate tax rates are cut in half. Where do you expect to make up the loss in revenue? Do you raise income taxes? Start taxing groceries? What do you do to maintain a functioning state once you've done everything to make PA agree with what a right-wing think tank assumes should be done to make us more "business friendly?"

I won't make an argument that corporate taxes shouldn't be lowered if that is in fact making PA uncompetitive. But that should be accompanied with an honest discussion about how you make up the difference.

Also, you should be honest about how corporate taxes are only on the profit after all operational costs and other liabilities. Could you imagine if your income taxes were based on the income you have left after all of your living expenses are accounted for? Wouldn't that be sweet?

[Lobick]

Originally Posted by hempfield mania

As much as the "methodologically based study" as you put it puts PA in the "middle of the pack", the other surveys of the people that actually matter (CEO's, directors, owners) rate PA rather low and guess what, those are the people that actually make the decisions. In this case, perception is their reality and in that same " methodologically based study", the bolded text from my initial detailed post states that if you combine corporations combined PA and federal net income tax liabilities, PA is rated the worst location IN THE WORLD.

There are a whole host of reasons why the comment about the PA corporate tax hypothetically being the highest in the world is a largely meaningless statement. It's obviously intended to arouse the passions of those who previously decided what the truth is, and to a certain extent I see it's worked. Most obviously, a nominal (not effective) singular US State's corporate tax rate that has little applicability or meaning outside of the US tax system and any comparisons are clearly apples to oranges to environments with vastly different tax structures. Additionally, no allowance was made, in this admittedly simple, seemingly throwaway statement, on which you place so much emphasis, for the deductibility of State taxes from Federal liabilities, which would lower any such effective rate.

The larger point, which you either missed or chose to gloss over since it runs contrary to your theme, is that the Corporate tax rate represents a small slice of the overall tax burden to which Corporations are exposed. It is only when looking at the totality of the tax environment in a given State that an accurate picture of future tax liabilities emerges. I suspect that if the CEOs do not currently understand that (and I suspect they do and that this poll was much more of a small part of a much larger attempt to lobby for a more pro-business legal and regulatory environment within PA) their CFOs and Accounting departments would inform them of such realities prior to any large-scale staffing or relocation decisions.

[jimmyev]

Originally Posted by hempfield mania

Yeah, many of the corporate headquarters that are still here are home grown. You don't have many that re-locate from other states here. And of those, many are here because of abatements and when those expire, many times, the headquarters are moved.

Low-tax Dallas dangled a tax-abatement to Boeing, yet it chose high-tax Chicago for its corporate HQ. Low-tax Houston dangled a tax-abatement to United, yet it chose high-tax Chicago for corporate HQ. Williamson County revoked its tax abatement offer to Apple, because Apple offered domestic partner benefits. But Apple built there anyways because it wanted access to Austin's job seekers. Taxes and abatements don't matter. Try a different argument.