School Property Tax Elimination Act Petitions
You can
help with the enactment of House Bill 1275, the School Property Tax Elimination
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
Jeff Helwig of the PCTA’s Wyoming County group has written an excellent
petition in support of the SPTEA that can be distributed throughout the
state. Jeff has volunteered to spearhead this effort by spreading the
petitions across the state and then collecting all completed petitions,
with the intent of organizing a march on Harrisburg to present them to
the General Assembly.
The PCTA and PTCC are asking that you circulate this petition as widely
as possible, send it others, and work to find volunteers to ask for signatures
at the polls on Election Day, May 19. Election Day would be a great time
to gather LOTS of signatures and to spread the word about the SPTEA. If
you can also separately gather 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.
The five page, 100 signature petition is available as a PDF file here.
You can print it as five 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
SPTEA. A single page SPTEA 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 Jeff at:
Wyoming County Concerned Taxpayers PAC
1501 SR6 West
Tunkhannock, PA 18657
Jeff will keep us informed of our progress on this initiative.
Individual Petition
Sign an individual petition to demonstrate your support of the SPTEA. 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 School Property Tax Elimination 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.
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School Property Tax Elimination Act Quick Facts
(Download as a PDF file here.)
TAX ELIMINATION:
House Bill 1275, the School Property Tax Elimination Act (SPTEA), permanently eliminates, through a four year phase-out, all school district property taxes for owner-occupied residences and farms as well as eliminating local earned income taxes (EIT) and local school nuisance taxes such as the per capita tax.
The School Property Tax Elimination Act completely eliminates the taxing ability of local school boards. The only exception will be an optional local EIT for major projects such as new school construction, and that will be subject to a no-exemption taxpayer referendum.
HOW THE PLAN IS FUNDED:
The SPTEA is funded through an expansion of the sales tax base to include more goods and services that are not now taxed. Examples are lawn mowing, landscaping, haircuts, sports and theater tickets, dry cleaning, candy and gum, magazines. The SPTEA does not raise the sales tax rate above the current 6%.
Exempt from the sales tax are all food and clothing currently exempt, all utilities, all heating fuels, health services, prescription drugs, public transportation, and professional services such as accounting and legal services.
The SPTEA increases the Pennsylvania Personal Income Tax (PIT) by 0.5% from 3.07% to 3.57%. This is essentially a dollar-for-dollar swap for the elimination of the local 0.5% EIT.
Important Fact: If your school property taxes are $1500 per year, you would need to spend an ADDITIONAL $25,000 annually on newly-taxed items to equal your eliminated property tax. If your school property tax is $3000 per year, you would need to spend an ADDITIONAL $50,000 annually on newly-taxed services to equal your eliminated property tax.
DISTRIBUTION TO THE SCHOOLS AND SPENDING CONTROLS:
Initially, the SPTEA will fully fund all districts at their current per-pupil level. The SPTEA then will provide upward equity adjustments to bring less affluent districts to a statewide per-pupil benchmark level without reducing funding to other districts, thus leveling the playing field between wealthier and poorer districts.
Under the first phase of the SPTEA (Years 1-4), all school districts will held harmless in that they 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.
Important Fact: Statewide, current school district budgets increase, on average, at twice the rate of inflation.
CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT:
Companion legislation to the School Property Tax Elimination Act provides for a constitutional amendment which GUARANTEES that, once eliminated, 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.