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Rarely does one come across an editorial that is so out of touch and tone deaf to its subject as the one published in the Williamsport Sun-Gazette on August 17 dealing with school funding.
School property taxes MUST be totally eliminated and replaced with more fair and equitable sources of income. This is no easy task as it requires replacing a $16B source of revenue with other sources. Property tax is from the 1700's when nearly all wealth derived from the amount of property a landowner controlled. Income from that land was a natural and legitimate resource to tax.
That is no longer the case. In my opinion this tax is particularly devastating to the retired elderly and low income homeowners. Every year their property tax goes up, but their income can't keep pace.
No "small increases in sales taxes" will EVER fix this. The tax must be eliminated. Rep. Frank Ryan's proposal is the latest in many attempts to make this happen. His bill, HB13, shifts the burden to a fairer revenue collection system: increased sales and use taxes and increased income tax. In a nutshell, taxes would be collected on the basis of ability to pay-- the more you make the more you would contribute; likewise, the more income you have the more you're likely to spend so the more sales tax you would pay. That makes more sense than seniors losing their homes to sheriff's sales because they are no longer able to pay the school district's toll.
Contrary to the editorial boards claim, these funding sources have been demonstrated over decades to be reliable. Further, by moving to the use of sales tax revenue Pennsylvania schools will benefit from an estimated $1.8B in revenue from out-of-state visitors.
I would encourage the Sun-Gazette's editorialists to do at least a modicum of background research into their editorial subjects before issuing such an ill-informed opinion.
RON SNELL
Plunketts Creek Township
Submitted by Virtual Newsroom