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Thursday, March 01, 2012

Despite NIZ, Pa. a Bad Place to Do Business

Although Allentown's "transformational" NIZ might succeed in poaching businesses from other locations in the Lehigh Valley, don't expect to see out-of-state companies make their way to the City Without Limits any time soon. That's because Pa. business is saddled with the worst or near-worst state tax burden in the nation, according to The Pittsburgh Tribune.

On top of a 9.99% corporate income tax rate (second highest in the country), a comprehensive analysis done by the nonpartisan Tax Foundation reveals Pennsylvania is just a lousy place to do business, in nearly every category.

Here's some of the disturbing rankings:

Corporate HQs: - 50

R & D Facilities - 50

Call Centers - 45

Distribution Center - 48

Retail - 47

Capital-Intensive Manufacturing - 9

Labor-Intensive Manufacturing - 26.

The only kind of business that thrives is an established capital-intensive company, which is permitted to exclude sales made out of state.

State house candidate Mike Schlossberg, who is running in an uncontested race for Jennifer Mann's seat, believes he can fix all this is "by closing the Delaware tax loophole and then dedicated a portion of the recovered tax revenue to a gradual decrease of the CNI [corporate net income]."

In other words, punish business even more.

Instead of enacting kooky schemes like the NIZ or ranting about the Delaware loophole that evil corporations use, future State Rep. Schlossberg and State Senator Pat Browne might actually consider some meaningful reforms in the way corporations are taxed.

In Senator Browne's own words, "This should be obvious."
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5 comments:

  1. AnonymousMarch 1, 2012 at 7:17 PM

    I thought Corbet and the Republican controlled House and Senate were going to change all this.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Crispus AttucksMarch 1, 2012 at 7:42 PM

    I think browne said "I am oblivious".

    ReplyDelete
  3. AnonymousMarch 1, 2012 at 8:08 PM

    Everyone should also keep in mind that there was no personal income tax in Pennsylvania until the Shapp administration of the early 70's

    This was enacted after a constitutional convention by both the Senate and House.

    ReplyDelete
  4. AnonymousMarch 2, 2012 at 9:35 PM

    The only news from Corbet and republican legislators is to sell the state stores and Lay-off middle class workers.

    ReplyDelete
  5. AnonymousMarch 3, 2012 at 7:00 PM

    We have the highest score, We won!

    ReplyDelete

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