The Property Tax Independence Act Petitions
You can help with
the enactment of The Property Tax Independence Act by signing and gathering
signatures on a petition for the bill's enactment.
There are two different petitions available - an individual petition that you might want to submit for yourself and a multi-signature petition where you can gather signatures from relatives, friends, and neighbors. Either way, you'll be helping to enact this vital legislation for the benefit of all Pennsylvania homeowners and schoolchildren!
Multi-signature Petition
The PCTA petition in support of The Property Tax Independence Act can be distributed throughout the state. The PCTA and PTCC are asking that you circulate this petition as widely as possible and send it to others to distribute.
Note that there is a line for the signer’s email address - this is very important. Please strongly encourage all signers to provide their email address so their legislator can contact them if necessary. If you can also separately compile the e-mail addresses from signers and send them to pataxpayers@gmail.com it would be appreciated - they'll be sent invitations to join the PTCC e-mail list.
Please also encourage petition signers to print legibly.
The multi-page petition is available as a PDF file here.
You can print it as separate pages or flip the paper over and print both
sides. This download also includes the Quick Facts sheet described in
the next paragraph.
When circulating petitions you will likely receive questions about The
Property Tax Independence Act. A single page Property Tax Independence
Act Quick Facts sheet to help answer these questions is available here
as a PDF document. The contents of this document are shown at the bottom
of this page.
You can send completed petitions to both your State Representative
and to:
Hon. Jim Cox
2909 Windmill Road
Suite 7
Sinking Spring, PA 19608
FAX: (610) 927-3584
Individual Petition
Sign an individual petition to demonstrate your support of The Property Tax Independence Act. Print extra copies for your friends, family, and neighbors so they can show their support, too! All individual petitions can be submitted in the same envelope or fax message to the address shown on the petition. Download the individual petition as a PDF file here.
Please do what you can to help in this effort for the enactment of The Property Tax Independence Act. It will be greatly appreciated.
Note: Be aware that these links connect to a PDF file. If you cannot view
it, you may need to download the Adobe Acrobat Reader or Foxit Reader.
The free Acrobat reader is available here.
The much smaller and less intrusive free Foxit PDF Reader is available
here.
These links will open in a new window.
The Property Tax Independence Act Quick Facts
(Download as a PDF file here.)
TAX REPLACEMENT:
HB 1776, The Property Tax Independence Act, permanently replaces school district property taxes as well as local school district earned income taxes (EIT) and local school nuisance taxes such as the per capita tax.
The Property Tax Independence Act will completely replace all but a small portion of school taxes over a two year phase-in period. The remaining portion of the property tax, typically about 10% of the total tax bill for most school districts, will be used to service current long-term bond debt in your district and will be completely eliminated when all current bond debt is retired. Some districts with little or no long-term debt will have their property taxes totally replaced by the end of the two year phase-in.
The Property Tax Independence Act completely eliminates the taxing ability of local school boards. The only allowed tax will be an optional local EIT or personal income tax for major projects, and that will be subject to a no-exception taxpayer referendum.
HOW THE PLAN IS FUNDED:
The Property Tax Independence Act is funded through a moderate expansion of the sales tax base to include more goods and services that are not now taxed. Examples are landscaping, haircuts, sports and theater tickets, dry cleaning, candy and gum, magazines. The plan also increases the sales tax rate to 7%.
Proposed exemptions from sales tax include food stamp purchases, all utilities, home heating fuels, health, hospital, and dental services, prescription drugs, and home health care.
The plan increases the Pennsylvania personal income tax (PIT) by 0.92% from 3.07% to 3.99%. This is essentially a dollar-for-dollar swap for the elimination of the local 0.5% EIT and local nuisance taxes.
DISTRIBUTION TO THE SCHOOLS AND SPENDING CONTROLS:
Initially, The Property Tax Independence Act will fully fund all districts at their current per-pupil level. Under the first phase of the plan, all school districts will initially receive 100% funding sufficient to meet all financial obligations. A per-student expenditure level will be established for each district and this initial funding will receive yearly base increases indexed to the rate of inflation. Future additional upward or downward adjustments in funding will account for increases or decreases in student enrollment over time.
CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT:
Proposed companion legislation to The Property Tax Independence Act will provide for a constitutional amendment which GUARANTEES that, once replaced, school property taxes would be gone forever and that a future legislature could never re-institute the taxing of our properties.
No tax should have the power to leave you homeless.
Further details about the School Property Tax Elimination Act are available
here.