Rep. Frank Ryan (R-Lebanon) unveiled Tuesday a proposal to eliminate school property taxes at a Capitol press conference.
House Bill 13, the School Property Tax Elimination Act, would replace 100 percent of all school property taxes.
“There is no bigger issue in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania than school property taxes,” Ryan said. “I get more emails and more comments on ‘when are we going to do something about school taxes’ than any other issue. The fact is, seniors are losing their homes to sheriff’s sales and young people are moving out of our state due to this onerous and unfair tax.”
Jim Rodkey, head of the Pennsylvania Property Rights Association; Al Ciardi, managing partner of Philadelphia-based Ciardi Ciardi & Astin, a law firm specializing in business bankruptcy and other matters; and Blake Ringenberg, a licensed professional counselor with Gethsemane Counseling and Coaching answered questions with Ryan at the press conference. Ringenberg spoke about the negative psychological impact on children when a family loses their home to property tax liens.
“The property tax is an archaic, regressive and unfair system of taxation and needs to come to be eliminated,” Rodkey said. “No other tax taxes the same thing over-and-over again until the taxes on the thing exceed its value and worth. Clinging to any part of the school property tax is to continue to embrace this onerous system of taxation. The current mechanism is so unsustainable that it’s not only a threat to our homes, it’s a threat to the future of public education!”
Ryan’s legislation would replace school property taxes with expanded and new levies. The bill would add a local Personal Income Tax (PIT) of 1.85 percent to be paid directly to the school district and a local sales tax of two percent on items that are already taxed by the Sales and Use Tax (SUT). These taxes would be allocated to the school district in the county in which the sale took place.
A local sales tax of two percent would be added to food and clothing, but these items would not be subject to the current six percent SUT. Anyone receiving Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program benefits or public assistance would be exempt from the taxes on food. Social Security would not be taxed. Retirement income would be taxed at a rate of 4.92 percent with 3.07 percent of that tax going to the state for education and 1.85 percent of the tax going to the school district. It is estimated that seniors would save approximately 75 percent of the school property taxes that they currently pay.