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When the Wolf administration passed legislation lowering the state corporate tax rate from 9.99% to 4.99% over a period of years, all this did was lower their tax bills.
It did nothing to increase sales and their profits.
To increase sales, it is necessary to give consumers more money to spend on goods and services. Consumers are everyday people, mostly working class, not the wealthy; Walmart would be out of business without working-class consumers.
Pennsylvania can give consumers more money to spend in two ways. The first is to reduce or eliminate the 6% state sales tax. The second way is to replace the 3.07% flat-rate state personal income tax with a graduated-income tax that is based on the ability to pay.
Both of these actions would give consumers of goods and services more money to spend and would increase sales and profits for businesses, plus increase tax revenue for the state. There would be no need to increase the state corporate income tax rate.
Yes, the state cut the wrong tax, but it’s not too late for Pennsylvania to modernize its tax structure and move ahead of its surrounding neighbor states.
David L. Faust
Selinsgrove