May Primary is May 15, 2007 and you need to be informed.
In the upcoming Primary Election, a BINDING BALLOT QUESTION will attempt to force the voters of Pennsylvania to impose a Local Income Tax on themselves!The Ballot Question asks if the voters want a Personal Income Tax, or an Earned Income Tax? The politicians forget the other option?Across Pennsylvania, please spread the word to WRITE IN NO TAX.
The turnout will be small, and politicians are banking on the fact that voters will not be prepared, and will feel forced to either vote for another odious tax, or - at best - abstain. Either way, that new tax would pass. But, if you spread the word, and tell your fellow citizens to write in "NO TAX", then possibly enough voters will do so, and the politicians will be forced to go back and eliminate the wasteful spending that is rampant.
The list of pro-life candidates is on the web site www.lifepac.net
12 comments:
I'll bet on the electronic machines there is no way to write in "no tax".
Further more, they are going to raise taxes again, then hold another series of hearings as to why PA is losing population and businesses.
Hi. First time visitor to the blogspot. Can you please tell me where you found the information for the BINDING BALLOT QUESTION? I would like to forward the info, but with all due respect, want a duplicate source to reference. Thanks for a great blogspot!
Welcome to PowerBlog! I hope you come back often.
The question is not easy to find. Most will be surprized to see it and not know what to do. It is required to be on the ballot and present by your local school district.
"Act 1 of Special Session 2006, also known as the Taxpayer Relief Act, requires each public school district in Pennsylvania to place a ballot question on the May 15, 2007 Primary Election Ballot. The question asks the voters if they favor increasing the earned income tax by a certain percentage in order to receive a decrease in real estate tax of a certain dollar amount."
Your local question may be worded a bit different but very similar.
You can validate my post by going to the website of Senator Jeffrey Piccola. Scroll down to paragraph 8 and you will find the info. You will find it here:
http://www.piccola.org/newsreleases/default.asp?NewsReleaseID=1527&SubjectID=
Hi- I'm a member of a group of parents from O'Hara Elementary School (in the Fox Chapel Area Schools district) who have been concerned about this legislation.
We created a blog as an information center for others to use and to ask questions if they can't find what they need: the site is www.fcparents.blogspot.com and anyone is welcome to use it.
Act 1 is the law passed in June of 2006, which mandates all of the state's school districts to put on the May ballot this "tax relief" question. The law requires specific language for the question, so it can't be tweaked to make it clearer.
In a nutshell, each district in PA has to offer an increase in earned income tax OR a newly imposed personal income tax (and each school board scrambled all fall and winter to appoint a commission to help them choose which to put on their ballots....)--and this revenue will be used to offset a set portion of the existing property tax. BUT, the stablest tax is property tax (which Act 1 also caps), which our schools can ill afford to see diminished.
Moreover, the "reduction" in property tax is not a reduction in overall tax. Each school district has its own formula for a breakpoint in household incomes at which the increase in income tax EXCEEDS the amount saved in property tax; for our district, a household earning more than $75,000 will pay MORE TOTAL TAX if they approve this tax "relief."
People need to spread the word and get people to vote. If our schools lose, ultimately the property owners lose.
Check with your own school board's web site or tax commission report to see how the coming referendum will affect you.
For those of you who'd like to know what's actually on the ballot, rather than the fear-mongering from the original blog post, here's the Pennsylvania League of Women Voters' summary: http://www.palwv.org/delco/Act1.html and another from the Pa. Dept. of Education's website: http://www.pde.state.pa.us/proptax/site/default.asp
In a nutshell, the initiative gives most school districts in the state (Exceptions: Philadelphia, Pittsburgh and Scranton) the chance to "reduce local property taxes by shifting some of their revenue to a local income tax." (Quote from League of Women Voters' summary.)
Further, the choices on the ballot should not, if the act is followed properly, be between an income tax and earned income tax. It's between one of those two and a lack of change.
Overall, this a proposed tax shift -- from homeowners to wage-earners -- not a tax reduction or increase with the sole exception that the state seems to think that moving to a non-property tax will lead to increased revenues for the schools when legalized gambling kicks in.
The commenter who claims to have crunched the numbers and concluded that households making more than $75,000 will pay more with the shift than they save in property tax doesn't pass any logical scrutiny: His/her argument completely ignores the value of property to be taxed.
I wish that who ever posted this uninformed blog would actually take the time to find out the truth before their lies are spread. Now people are pasting your ridiculous blog all over e-mail for everyone to be misinformed.
The choice is whether to raise the Personal OR Earned Income tax by a 10th of a percent you ALREADY pay, in EXCHANGE for a reduction in your property tax. The result, if passed will mean that you will pay MORE money every year.
Now that you have told everyone your lies, people are going to try to write in. They can't write in. It's a YES or NO vote. So people will invalidate their votes and there will be a greater chance that this will pass...and you will pay more money. You should be ashamed for posting things without being informed.
Heaven forbid people are actually informed before they vote.
I'm not voting for a tax increase in any form. We were already promised a property tax reducdction of gambling was approved at race tracks.
Now we have stand alone casinos, talk of table games and suddenly that reduction will only take place if I vote to pay more taxes. Sorry but I'm not going for it and I don't think my readers should.
>>I'm not voting for a tax increase in any form.
Where is there a tax increase? It sounds like there is an offsetting deduction in property tax. You aren't helping me understand your point. I need more references please, and will Philadelphia, Pittsburgh and Scranton not have this on their ballots? That is the impression I got.
>>I'm not voting for a tax increase in any form.
Where is there a tax increase? It sounds like there is an offsetting deduction in property tax. You aren't helping me understand your point. I need more references please, because I keep getting this in emails and need to know more info. Will Philadelphia, Pittsburgh and Scranton not have this on their ballots? That is the impression I got.
If you vote yes your earned income tax will go up. The pitch is your property tax will go down. So best case the taxes shift. Nothing is gaurenteed. Wern't we promised a property tax reduction of gambling was approved. I want to see them keep thier first promise before anyone rooks me into voting for any increase.
This question as I understand will be asked in all PA school districts.
> This question as I understand will be asked in all PA school districts.
It was not on my ballot in Philadelphia.... but there was a question removed by court order.
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