Pennsylvania Taxpayers Cyber Coalition

Help to spread the word!

2010-10-09T17:20:00.002-04:00

Your help is needed to increase awareness of the property tax elimination solution. You can spread the word about HB 1275, the School Property Tax Elimination Act. Download, print, and distribute copies of the single page "SPTEA Quick Facts" handout to everyone you know. The PDF file is available here.

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PTCC Update

2010-09-13T11:35:00.002-04:00

13 September 2010

Dear Friends,

There’s been very little news to report since the last PTCC Update in May but with the November general election approaching it’s time to get back to the business of property tax elimination. Today’s update will be a compilation of short news briefs and action items about the property tax issue.

Unfortunately, we lost our best chance of a fast track to the enactment of the School Property Tax Elimination Act (SPTEA) with Representative Sam Rohrer’s defeat in the May gubernatorial primary election. My thanks go out to all of you who worked so hard on Sam’s campaign and to those who voted for him. Despite Sam’s loss we will continue to pursue new and already-established methods of support for the SPTEA and will need your ongoing help if we are to succeed.

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SPTEA 2011 Reintroduction

Jim Cox, Sam Rohrer’s former Chief of Staff, a contributing writer of the SPTEA, and now a second term State Representative from the 129th Legislative District has pledged to reintroduce the SPTEA shortly after he takes office in January. Jim, like Sam, is a strong supporter of school property tax elimination and will wage the battle with the same vigor as Sam. We are excited to have Jim continue Sam’s work for the benefit of Pennsylvania’s homeowners.

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Hold Their Feet To The Fire!

By now I’m sure that you’ve all seen your Act 1 property tax relief from gambling money for 2010. In many instances the “relief” was less than in 2009, and you shouldn’t hold out hope to see this improve in the future. Act 1 was a fraud perpetrated on Pennsylvania homeowners to curry favor with the gambling interests and we will continue to see such bogus schemes until we join together to hold lawmakers’ feet to the fire and throw out any incumbents who refuse to support total property tax elimination.

In that regard, the PCTA has had a great deal of success during the past few months in recruiting House and Senate candidates from both parties to the cause. The PCTA will be identifying these candidates in a voter’s guide that will be issued shortly before the November election.

In the meantime, it is imperative that you contact your Representative before the election to let him or her know that you will settle for nothing less than their total support for the School Property Tax Elimination Act and that you will vote against them if they have an opponent in November and do not comply with your demands. For those Representatives who prefer to play politics and respond with valueless excuses, please remember that there are NO excuses – the SPTEA has been vetted and absolutely works as written. Stand firm if they refuse to support the SPTEA!

You can find your legislator's contact information by Zip+4 here.

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The New Governor’s Support?

Over the summer two PCTA group leaders and I had ninety minute private meetings with each of the two major gubernatorial candidates, Tom Corbett and Dan Onorato, to discuss the SPTEA and to ask for their support. We explained the urgency of the property tax problem, the provisions and mechanism of the SPTEA, the economic benefits of the plan and the political advantages of their support for this legislation. Both candidates for Governor asked pertinent questions and indicated interest in the SPTEA.

Unfortunately, neither candidate has yet publicly committed to championing the SPTEA. The closest either candidate has come to endorsing the plan was a statement by Dan Onorato at a few public meetings where he said that he supports school property tax elimination and that “there is a bill in the Legislature to accomplish this.” Mr. Onorato did not cross the line to specifically mention the SPTEA but we’re hopeful that he or Mr. Corbett may do so during their campaigns.

It would be a huge help if all of you would take the time to contact the gubernatorial candidates’ campaigns to express your wishes regarding their support of the School Property Tax Elimination Act. The PTCC Updates have a very large circulation and if everyone who reads this takes a few minutes to participate we can flood the candidates’ inboxes and really get their attention!

The Tom Corbett for Governor campaign contact page is here.

The Dan Onorato for Governor campaign contact page is here.

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Critical Issue

On August 30, the day before the due date for school property taxes, I spoke with several tax collectors about this year’s revenue; all told me that collections for the year are running well behind last year. This could be due to many factors but the most likely are downward reassessments, particularly for businesses, increased property taxes in many districts, and the inability of taxpayers to accrue sufficient funds to pay their taxes during the rebate period. The tax collectors also told me about the unusually large number of people who complained to them that they have had to take out reverse mortgages to pay their taxes, a disgraceful situation.

The property tax crisis is quickly worsening and will soon be beyond the ability to correct the problem with the SPTEA or any other true elimination plan.

Broadening the base of the sales tax, the main funding mechanism in the School Property Tax Elimination Act, is currently sufficient to replace all homestead/farmstead school property taxes in Pennsylvania. But without cost controls to limit annual property tax increases it will take only two to three more years of rising taxes to outstrip the ability of the SPTEA to fully replace those taxes.

The situation is critical and must be corrected NOW! This is why I requested above that you get tough with the November candidates for State House, Senate, and Governor, and demand that they support the SPTEA or vote them out of office. We have no more time to waste on special interests, petty politics and lame excuses. Please help!

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Final Notes

The momentum is building! The PCTA will likely gain four more taxpayer advocacy groups for the statewide coalition over the next few weeks as the property tax situation worsens. Adams, Cumberland, and Perry Counties are all suffering through botched reassessments this year and folks from many other areas are extremely disturbed by school property tax increases. These good people are becoming activists and are working do what is necessary to end the property tax crisis. I’ll pass along information on these groups when they’ve officially become PCTA members. If you’d like to start a group in your area, please write to me. The PCTA member groups will be pleased to help you get things rolling.

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I’ll be presenting the SPTEA at three town meetings in September and all of you are invited to attend to learn more about the plan and to show your support. Hope to see you there!

- Thursday Sep. 16, 7:00 PM, Bernville Fire Company, Bernville (Berks County), sponsored by the Community School Watch of Tulpehocken

- Wednesday Sep. 22, 7:00 PM, Christiana Firehouse, Christiana (Lancaster County), Sponsored by CLASTA

- Wednesday Sep. 29, 6:30 PM, Quakertown Community Library, Quakertown (Bucks County), sponsored by the Upper Bucks Taxpayers Action Group

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That’s all for today. As usual, thank you very much for your perseverance and ongoing support. Your help is sincerely and gratefully appreciated.

David Baldinger
PTCC Administrator
www.ptcc.us
pataxpayers@gmail.com

Help enact the SPTEA!

2010-04-12T22:08:00.001-04:00

13 April 2010

Dear Friends,

Today’s update will be short and to the point.

As in the last PTCC Update, there is nothing new to report on the School Property Tax Elimination Act. The bill is still in the House Finance Committee and I doubt that we’ll see any action on property taxes prior to the election. After all, if the property tax problem was solved now the incumbents wouldn’t be able to make another hollow promise to “fix” the problem as part of their re-election campaign, would they?

This brings us back to the same Action Item as in the last update – the election of Sam Rohrer as Governor. Sam’s election is the single best chance we will have to accomplish the timely elimination of property taxes since he has been the driving force for this issue in the legislature and has made it a primary plank in his campaign platform. No other candidate for Governor has made this commitment and most have not addressed the issue in any manner whatsoever.

Here’s what you can do to help:

- Sam MUST win the primary election on May 18 to be on the ballot in November. If you are not a registered Republican, the PTCC respectfully requests that you either register to vote if you are not already registered or to consider changing your registration to Republican for the May primary election so you may vote for Representative Rohrer and then change back to your original registration after the primary election if you so choose.

There is a graphic link in the right column of any PTCC page titled “VOTE. Register to vote or change your party affiliation”. Click that link to go to the page that has a downloadable voter registration application. Simply download, print, enter the required information and send it to your county’s voter registration office – the addresses are on the form. The application must be received by your county's voter registration office before this Friday, April 16, to be effective for the May primary election. If you haven’t done this and are willing, please do it NOW!

Within three days of making this request in the last PTCC Update, 92 people downloaded the voter registration application from the PTCC website! Here’s a big “Thank You” to all those who put party politics aside to help the cause.

- If you want to help further, please consider volunteering for Sam’s campaign. People are needed locally in many capacities and I’m sure that there’s a job that will suit you no matter how much or how little time you have available. You can find volunteer opportunities at http://www.samrohrer.org/volunteer.html.

- True to his convictions, Sam is not accepting campaign funding from any special interests or PACs so he will not be obligated to do favors for them and will be beholden only to the people who elect him. Because of this he is running a very lean campaign and can use all the monetary support you are able to give. While $100 donations are nice, Sam can use any amount you’re able to contribute even of it is only ten or twenty dollars. Please consider this – you can donate on-line at the Web address above.

- Finally, if you’re a Facebook subscriber please become a Sam Fan. Besides his main Facebook page there are other specialized Sam Fan pages that you can also join. Just do a Facebook search for “Sam Rohrer”.

That’s all for today. My heartfelt thanks go out to all of you who are working so hard to make property tax elimination a reality. You’re the best!

David Baldinger
PTCC Administrator

PTCC Update - Your help is needed NOW!

2010-02-03T14:29:00.001-05:00

03 February 2010

Dear Friends,

It’s been a while since the last PTCC Update because there hasn’t been much to report. The Pennsylvania legislature has met for only a few days since November; their only significant accomplishments have been the legalization of table games in the state’s casinos (which will give us NO property tax relief) and a bill passed by the House but not yet ratified in the Senate to ban handheld cell phone use while driving. There has been no action on property taxes and the School Property Tax Elimination Act is still languishing in the Finance Committee.

The House is in disarray right now because of Bonusgate and internal squabbles, so don’t expect much to happen soon. Hopefully that will change later this year as the election approaches and the politicians up for re-election will drag out their usual stale promises for property tax “relief” in an attempt to again deceive the voters in November. If we’re fortunate they will actually bring bills to the floor for consideration and the School Property Tax Elimination Act will be among them.

It is almost certain that there will be more pre-election shenanigans this year, so view with a wary eye any politician who is up for re-election and who brags about their property tax relief plan.

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“Getting Sam Rohrer elected governor of Pennsylvania is probably the most important election I've ever been involved in, in my lifetime.” – Vic Lawson of the Bradford County Concerned Citizens

The last PTCC Update in November announced the PTCC’s endorsement of State Representative Sam Rohrer for Governor. Shortly after that announcement our thirty-six group statewide umbrella organization, the Pennsylvania Coalition of Taxpayer Associations (PCTA), also gave their endorsement to Representative Rohrer.

As you may remember from the update, the endorsement was given because of Representative Rohrer’s ongoing long-term effort to eliminate school property taxes through his School Property Tax Elimination Act, the legislation supported by the PTCC and PCTA. Continuing his commitment to this issue, school property tax elimination is one of the five main planks of Representative Rohrer’s platform in his candidacy for Governor. His election may be our single best opportunity to achieve our goal of eliminating this onerous tax.

Representative Rohrer will need the support of all PTCC subscribers if he is to prevail. Today I’m going to offer a few suggestions on how you can help his candidacy and finally achieve school property tax elimination with his election.

- The simplest thing you can do is to spread the word about our efforts by forwarding this email to everyone in your Pennsylvania email address book and by asking your friends, neighbors and family to support Sam.

- If you’re a Facebook member, please join Sam’s Facebook page. It will help!

- Visit Sam’s campaign site, read about his goals as Governor, sign up for email newsletters, and volunteer to help with the campaign. There are many volunteer opportunities available from the very simple, such as displaying a bumper sticker, to the more ambitious, like circulating a nominating petition or working a phone bank. If you are able, please strongly consider donating whatever amount you can afford, large or small, to Sam’s candidacy. Sam is fighting for the nomination against the candidate anointed by the party machine and grassroots donations are a very important part of the campaign. Details on all of the items above are available at www.samrohrer.org.

- Attend the “Mobilize for Liberty 2010” event in Harrisburg on Saturday, February 13. In addition to showing support for Sam, this grassroots action conference will give great advice on how to make your voice heard in the race for Governor. A large number of grassroots activists from across the state have already registered, including more than twenty leaders and members of PCTA affiliated groups. It promises to be a very exciting day, so please attend if you can and join me and many others who are working for the cause. Speakers include: Representative Sam Rohrer, Samuel "Joe" Wurzelbacher - "Joe the Plumber", R.J. Harris - WHP 580, Gary Sutton - WSBA 910, and more. Registration is $25 but scholarships are available if you can’t afford the fee. Details and a link to the on-line registration page are here: http://www.samrohrer.org/mobilize

- Finally, one huge request. As you read it, please keep in mind that this has nothing to do with favoring any political party but, instead, is to help the only gubernatorial candidate who has sworn to help us reach our goal. In the six years since the PTCC was founded I have always attempted to remain objective and strictly non-partisan and this is the only time I have ever made a request like the one below.

Shortly after the PTCC’s endorsement announcement I received this e-mail from a subscriber: “Sam's biggest challenge will be the Republican primary. I urge you to call on all of our members to change their registration to Republican if they are not already. That is the only way they will be able to help Sam compete in the Republican primary and if he doesn't get past the primary it's game over. If we can help him win the primary he will be in a much more recognized spot to get his message out for the general election. Regardless of our own personal politics, we must all register or change to Republican simply to be able to vote for Sam in the primary. This is too important not to push.”

This suggestion is not without precedent. In early 2008 many non-Democrats switched their registration to Democrat to have a voice in the Barack Obama – Hillary Clinton primary election and then reverted to their original registration after the election.

If you are not a registered Republican, the PTCC respectfully requests that you consider changing your registration to Republican for the May 18, 2010, primary election so you may vote for Representative Rohrer and then change back to your original registration after the primary election if you so choose.

If you are not a registered Republican, a write-in vote on your party’s ballot WILL NOT be counted towards Representative Rohrer’s nomination for the November general election. You MUST vote as a registered Republican to support Representative Rohrer’s candidacy.

There is a graphic link in the right column of the PTCC home page (www.ptcc.us) titled “VOTE. Register to vote or change your party affiliation”. Click that link to go to the page that has a downloadable voter registration application. Simply download, print, enter the required information and send it to your county’s voter registration office – the addresses are on the form. The application must be received by your county's voter registration office before April 16, 2010, to be effective for the May, 2010, primary election.

The May primary election is crucial to our efforts, so please seriously consider this request to help achieve our goal of school property tax elimination. Your help will be greatly appreciated.

Please feel free to write at any time with questions or concerns.

My gratitude goes out to all of you for your loyalty and ongoing support. I simply don’t have the words to tell you how much you are valued. Thank you.

David Baldinger
PTCC Administrator

New hope for the SPTEA!

2009-11-27T08:32:00.001-05:00

27 November 2009

Dear Friends,

I hope that you had a very happy Thanksgiving!

This Update begins with a disclaimer that I will use for all future discussions of today’s topic.

In the five years since the PTCC was established I have always carefully avoided any partisan bias and always attempt to call the situation as I see it regardless of the politics involved. I firmly believe that the property tax crisis has been caused by the inaction of Republicans and Democrats alike and that it will require committed lawmakers from both parties to permanently solve the problem. Please keep this in mind as you read today’s Update.

The PTCC today is announcing its endorsement of State Representative Sam Rohrer for Governor of Pennsylvania.

For many years Representative Rohrer has worked tirelessly for the total elimination of school property taxes and a restructuring of Pennsylvania’s broken education finance system. Along the way he has been thwarted by shameful partisan politics, callous special interests, and the appalling cowardice of many self-serving lawmakers who do not have the political will to support such sweeping legislation.

On Tuesday, November 17, Representative Rohrer announced his candidacy for Governor of Pennsylvania. During his announcement address Sam emphasized that school property tax elimination will be one of the five main planks of his campaign platform and a priority of his administration.

From the standpoint of school property tax elimination we could not have received better news. As Governor, Sam Rohrer will be in a position to advance the education finance reform agenda in a manner that to this point has been impossible. His election as Governor would hugely increase the likelihood of school property tax elimination in a way that we previously could have only imagined.

Of the three Republicans and five Democrats who have announced their candidacy for Governor, Representative Rohrer has been the ONLY one to make this commitment. Five candidates have not mentioned the issue in any manner whatsoever, while the remaining two have used the tired, meaningless, nonspecific terms “property tax reform” and “cut property taxes” in their campaign.

Through his ongoing efforts, Representative Rohrer has proven that he truly understands the property tax crisis for what it is: A moral issue that must be resolved to free Pennsylvania homeowners from oppressive property taxes and not a cynical political ploy to be used to win elections.

Because of the PTCC’s singular focus on education finance reform, the only factors I will consider for this election are an unequivocal public commitment to eliminate school property taxes and a definitive plan to do so - that will be my litmus test for any candidate for Governor in 2010. Representative Rohrer has passed that test.

I believe that the time has come to forget labels like Democrat and Republican, red and blue, conservative and liberal, left and right. Self-centered politicians of all stripes have demonstrated their unwillingness to be responsive to their constituents’ desires, preferring instead to take the easy road and do what is politically expedient. It is time to end this charade by electing those people who are attuned to and sympathetic to our needs, regardless of party, if we are to regain control of the government that is rightfully ours. I hope that you feel as I do on this issue.

Representative Rohrer’s candidacy has not been sanctioned by those political party power brokers who choose our candidates for us and who are concerned only about amassing power and winning and losing. For Sam to succeed it will take a bottom-up grassroots groundswell of support to accomplish the task of electing a Governor whose primary concern is the will of the people who elect him to office. With our efforts – the power of the people - we can demonstrate to the uncaring political bosses that we will no longer be content with candidates who are forced upon us by those who have little interest in our well-being. We will, instead, show them that we will elect those who will truly work for the people and not for the party establishment.

During the years of effort I have spent advocating for education funding reform and school property tax elimination I have come to know Representative Rohrer very well and I respect him greatly. I feel privileged to have had the opportunity to work with him on this vital issue and sincerely believe that he is an honorable and principled man of tremendous integrity who will do whatever he promises for the citizens of Pennsylvania.

I am asking you today to please strongly consider supporting Representative Rohrer’s candidacy, regardless of your political preference, to help achieve our goal of school property tax elimination. This is a non-partisan request based entirely on advancing the cause we support and is not based in any manner on political philosophy or affiliation. During all of the years that we have been working toward this goal we have never had a better opportunity to reach our objective. Your help is urgently needed if we are to succeed.

You can read more about Representative Rohrer’s goals on his campaign website at www.samrohrer.org.

In future PTCC Updates I’ll have specific suggestions on what you can do to support Representative Rohrer and the battle for school property tax elimination.

You can offer comments and discuss today’s update here on the PTCC blog or on the new PTCC Facebook page – simply search for “PTCC” when you’re logged on to Facebook and become a friend. We’d like to hear your thoughts.

Please forward this post to everyone you know to help spread the word and advance the cause.

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One more note for our friends in the Northeast: Representative Rohrer will be holding a town hall meeting on Thursday, December 10, at 6:30 PM at the Clarks Summit Volunteer Fire Department, 321 Bedford Street, Clarks Summit. Please be there to meet Sam, hear about his “Principles to Renew Pennsylvania”, and show your support! There will be more of these meetings in the future throughout the state and the PTCC will keep you up-to-date on locations and times.

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That’s it for today. My best wishes and my gratitude go out to all PTCC supporters and subscribers. Thank you very much for all of your help.

David Baldinger
PTCC Administrator
www.ptcc.us

Update - The SPTEA is introduced!

2009-11-06T11:00:00.002-05:00

07 November 2009

Dear Friends,

It’s been quite a while since our last PTCC Update since not much had been happening. But suddenly, when it rains, it pours!

The SPTEA is introduced!

On October 29 Representative Sam Rohrer, along with thirty-one bipartisan co-sponsors, formally introduced the School Property Tax Elimination Act in the House of Representatives as House Bill (HB) 1275.

HB 1275 has been referred to the House Finance Committee for consideration. Its fate is now in the hands of the House Democrats who, as the majority party, control the flow of legislation. They have an abominable record for supporting school property tax elimination measures so we'll have to do whatever is possible to get the bill out of committee and onto the floor for a vote. I’ll have details on how you can help in a future PTCC Update.

The list of HB 1275 co-sponsors is available on the PTCC website here. Please consider sending an e-mail to thank those Representatives who co-sponsored. You might also want to send a letter or e-mail or make a phone call to your Representative if he or she is not on the list to strongly urge him or her to add their name as a co-sponsor of the SPTEA. It’s never too late for them to do this. And, please, don’t accept any their useless excuses – there are none!

You can find your Representative’s contact information through the “Find Your Legislators” link on the PTCC homepage.

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Act 1 Index

What’s your potential school property tax increase for 2010? The Pennsylvania Department of Education has released the 2010-2011 Act 1 index that shows the maximum allowable tax increase before exception or referendum.

For the 2010-2011 school year the average increase in the Act 1 index for all Pennsylvania school districts is 3.8%; the largest increase is 4.7% with the smallest at 2.9%. This increase is interesting because during the one year period September 2008 to September 2009 the Consumer Price Index (CPI), an inflation measure, was a deflationary -1.3% (U.S. Department of Labor, October 2009).

More information about the index and a complete listing for all Pennsylvania school districts are available on the PTCC website here. The index is available as a downloadable PDF (Acrobat) file.

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Gambling expansion to include table games

Speaking of Act 1, the terrific property tax “relief” we’ve been receiving from the legalized gaming in Pennsylvania supported by Act 1 may be even less with the expansion to table games that was included as part of the 2009-2010 state budget package.

At this point the increased revenues from the table games legislation does not include any distribution for property tax relief – all taxes collected from this new law will be used for general fund expenditures.

But to make matters worse, it is predicted that table games will attract some slots players, reducing the revenue from slot machines that is dedicated to property tax relief. In addition, it is also predicted that some casinos will reduce the number of slot machines available to clear floor space for table games, further reducing the revenue from slots. If you think the current property tax relief from gambling is paltry now, wait until the table games start siphoning money from the relief fund!

This is just one more reason why the bogus Act 1 property tax relief from gambling needs to be repealed and property tax elimination enacted through the School Property Tax Elimination Act.

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The Autumn 2009 SPTEA Promo Pack

Mike Fogarty of the PCTA’s Coatesville group has compiled a downloadable package of promotional goodies to help you spread the word about the SPTEA. The package includes posters, letters, and information about the looming 2012 public employees’ pension spike that will strongly affect your property taxes.

The Promo Pack is available on the PTCC website here.

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New PCTA Member Groups!

Since the last PTCC Update the Pennsylvania Coalition of Taxpayer Associations (PCTA) has added two dynamic new groups to our growing alliance for a total of thirty-four dedicated taxpayer advocacy organizations!

In August, PA Tax Talk from Montgomery County joined the PCTA’s effort for the enactment of the School Property Tax Elimination Act. PA Tax Talk is eager to welcome new Southeast PA members; contact Ernie Rosato at support@pataxtalk.com to help the cause.

In September, the PCTA added the Concerned Citizens of Bethlehem Area School District from Northampton County to the roster. The CC-BASD is a very active organization with regularly scheduled meetings and would certainly welcome your participation as a member. Contact Patty Felix at cclvpa@gmail.com to join their efforts.

The PCTA heartily welcomes PA Tax Talk and CC-BASD to the PCTA! We’re pleased to have you on board to keep the momentum building.

If you’re fed up with unfair taxation and unresponsive politicians and would like to form your own taxpayer advocacy group, contact any PCTA member group for advice and assistance. The PCTA members are listed on the PTCC website here. It’s easy to do and we’ll give you all the help you need.

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PCTA-SPTEA regional taxpayer meetings a success!

The PCTA-sponsored October meetings in Wilkes-Barre and Duncannon to explain and promote the School Property Tax Elimination Act were a huge success, with hundreds of attendees eager to lean the details of the SPTEA. The PCTA gained many new supporters who are very enthusiastic about working for the enactment of the SPTEA and we are pleased to welcome them to the cause.

We are grateful for the hard work of arranging and staging these meetings that was done by PCTA member groups: Citizens Against Property Taxes (Luzerne County), Scranton and Lackawanna County Taxpayers’ and Citizens’ Association, Wyoming County Concerned Taxpayers, The Patriot’s Voice (Columbia County), and Citizens for the Elimination of Property Taxes (Perry County). Our thanks, too, to Sue Henry of WILK Radio for being a true believer in our efforts and for hosting the Northeast meeting.

The PCTA will be sponsoring more of these meetings in the future, so please keep watch for a PTCC Update announcing a meeting in your area.

The PTCC and PCTA are proud to have all of you as Update subscribers and supporters of the SPTEA. We can’t get this job done without you and we are pleased to have you by our side in our fight for true education finance reform. Thank you!

That’s all for now. Please write if you have questions or concerns.

David Baldinger
PTCC Administrator
pataxpayers@gmail.com

South-Central PA Regional Taxpayer Event

2009-09-26T17:04:00.001-04:00

26 September 2009

Dear Friends,

The school property tax elimination event that was sponsored by the northeast region groups of the Pennsylvania Coalition of Taxpayer Associations on Thursday, September 24, was a great success, with many attendees and terrific newspaper and radio coverage. One newspaper account of the meeting is here.

Now for our next event…

The School Property Tax Elimination Act (SPTEA) will be the topic of a public meeting that is being sponsored by our Perry County taxpayer group, Citizens for the Elimination of Property Taxes, a member the statewide grassroots PCTA.

The event will be held on Thursday, October 1 at 7:00 PM in the Duncannon EMS Banquet Hall, 16 Shermanta Drive, Duncannon, PA. An introduction will be given by Perry County’s Citizens for the Elimination of Property Taxes, details of the School Property Tax Elimination Act will be presented by the plan’s prime sponsor, State Representative Sam Rohrer, and I’ll be there to talk about the politics of the plan and how taxpayers can help to make the SPTEA a reality. There will be a question and answer session following the presentation.

Taxpayers from throughout the south-central area of Pennsylvania are strongly encouraged to attend this regional meeting to learn about how the SPTEA can relieve their property tax burden, the politics of the plan’s enactment, and ways they can help to make this legislation a reality. Of course, you’re welcome to attend no matter where you live if you’re willing to make the drive!

Please plan to attend this event and bring others with you. And please forward this e-mail to anyone you know who is concerned about the property tax situation in Pennsylvania.

We hope to see you there!

David Baldinger
PTCC Administrator
www.ptcc.us
pataxpayers@gmail.com

Northeast Regional Taxpayer Event

2009-09-15T15:43:00.001-04:00

15 September 2009

Dear Friends,

This is just a short note today to remind you about the Pennsylvania Coalition of Taxpayer Associations (PCTA) Northeast Pennsylvania regional property tax elimination event.

The School Property Tax Elimination Act will be the topic of this public meeting that is sponsored by the five Northeast Pennsylvania taxpayer advocacy groups that are members of the statewide grassroots PCTA.

The event will be held on Thursday, September 24 at 7:00 PM in the Wyoming Valley West High School, Route 11, Plymouth, PA, just a few miles from I-81. Introductions will be given by a member of each participating group, I’ll be there to present details of the School Property Tax Elimination Act, and there will be a question and answer session following the presentation. The meeting will be emceed by Sue Henry of WILK Radio.

Taxpayers from throughout the eleven Northeast counties are strongly encouraged to attend this regional meeting to learn about how the SPTEA can relieve their property tax burden, the politics of the plan’s enactment, and ways they can help to make this legislation a reality. Of course, you’re welcome to attend no matter where you live if you’re willing to make the drive!

Participating taxpayer groups include CAPTaxes of Luzerne County, Scranton and Lackawanna County Taxpayers’ and Citizens’ Association, Wyoming County Concerned Taxpayers, The Patriot’s Voice of Columbia County, and Bradford County Concerned Citizens.

Please plan to attend this event and bring others with you. And please forward this e-mail to anyone you know who is concerned about the property tax situation in Pennsylvania.

We hope to see you there!

David Baldinger
PTCC Administrator
www.ptcc.us

ACTION ITEM The SPTEA is in jeopardy!

2009-08-25T11:37:00.002-04:00

URGENT ACTION ITEM

25 August 2009

Dear Friends,

This is an urgent Action Item that needs your immediate attention. Please read this Update and forward it to as many folks as possible.

First, let me begin with a disclaimer as a preface to today’s Update. This Update is not about the current Pennsylvania budget battle, an issue on which the PTCC and PCTA have not taken a position. Further, it is not meant to attack any political party but, rather, to point out the facts as they exist.

On Monday, August 24, House Minority Leader Representative Sam Smith issued a statement about the budget fight. I have excerpted the portions of the statement that are relative to school property tax elimination:

HARRISBURG – The following is a statement from House Republican Leader Sam Smith (R-Jefferson County) regarding the Sales and Use Tax expansion proposal being offered by the governor as a means to fund his bloated state spending proposal ...

... “Last week, Democrats were looking to tax legal services and limit access to the courts”.

“Now, we learn ‘everything is on the table,’ and they have a list of items, including many other ‘services’ they are looking to tax for more revenues – including each and every ATM transaction”.

“Newspapers and magazines; movie, sports and theater tickets; museums, historic sites and the zoo will all have the state Sales and Use Tax added to their costs just to increase state spending. Research and development, advertising, and administrative services will be taxed under the governor’s plan. In order to pay for big government services, Democrats are even looking to tax Unemployment Compensation Claims, mass transit, textbooks, flags and dry cleaning"...

From the Harrisburg Patriot-News, August 24, 2009:

… Republican negotiators have also rejected an increase in the sales tax, but left the door open for raising money by applying the sales tax to more types of items.

Rendell said Monday he was mystified by some of the existing exemptions, such as on sales of gold bullion and certain cable television charges.

"A lot of the exceptions make no sense and are solely the product of effective lobbying by special interests," he said, adding that food and clothing should remain exempt …

The proposal to expand the base of the sales tax poses a direct and immediate threat to the future of the School Property Tax Elimination Act (SPTEA). Since the SPTEA’s primary funding source is the expansion of the sales tax base, expanding the base for use in the general fund would wipe out the SPTEA’s funding and effectively kill the SPTEA forever. If we are to continue to work for school property tax elimination it is urgent that this proposal is stopped NOW!

** ACTION ITEM **

Since the Senate Republican negotiators are basically controlling the budget deliberations at this point, they are the lawmakers who have the best probability of stopping the proposed sales tax expansion. Therefore, it is imperative that you contact them as soon as possible to demand that an expansion of the sales tax base be removed from the table for this purpose. Please note the phrase “for this purpose”. If you give them the idea that you object to an expansion of the sales tax base for any reason it could come back to haunt us later during SPTEA debate.

Please voice your displeasure to the Senate leaders listed below as well as to your own Senator and Representative. Your lawmakers’ contact information can be found here by ZIP+4 .

Senate President Pro Tempore:

Senator Joseph Scarnati
Senate Box 203025
Harrisburg, PA 17120-3025
(717) 787-7084
jscarnati@pasen.gov

Senate Majority Leader:

Senator Dominic Pileggi
Senate Box 203009
Harrisburg, PA 17120-3009
(717) 787-4712
dpileggi@pasen.gov

Senate Appropriations Committee Chairman:

Senator Jake Corman
Senate Box 203034
Harrisburg, PA 17120-3034
(717) 787-1377
jcorman@pasen.gov

I cannot overemphasize the urgency of this Action Item. If the plan to expand the sales tax base for general fund purposes succeeds, we will have seen the demise of the School Property Tax Elimination Act. Please act on this today and forward this e-mail to as many folks as possible!

Thank you in advance for all of your help and support.

David Baldinger
PTCC Administrator
www.ptcc.us

P.S. For those of you who want to see the hypocrisy that has been demonstrated on this issue, please read the quotes below. Almost all are comments from the debate on the SPTEA in January 2008 that I have extracted from the House Legislative Journal and most are by the Democrats who now support the expansion of the sales tax base. They fought against the sales tax expansion for the elimination of property taxes - which would have benefited everyone - but now they seem to think it's the perfect solution to pay for their general fund budget.

This is rather lengthy and adds nothing to the Update above, so if you haven’t the time or inclination it is not necessary for you to read it. It is FYI only.

Current quote from Rep. David Levdansky, House Finance Committee Chair, as published in the August 16, 2009 edition of the Scranton Times:

"Rep. David Levdansky, D-39, Elizabeth, chairman of the House Finance Committee, said a sales tax expansion could generate several hundred million dollars of new tax revenues annually. He wants to make the implementation of the sales tax fairer by ending some exemptions."

House Legislative Journal January 28, 2008:

Page 186:
Mr. LEVDANSKY. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
... I think Representative Rohrer has it all backwards. If you want to broaden the sales tax to include all these services, then do that, but the reality is, the way it would be applied is extraordinarily unfair, and I am not saying that I am for expansion of the sales tax. I am not, but if one thinks that that is the right thing to do, this is the wrong way and the unfair way to do it ...

... For example, when you go to the MAC (money access center) machine and you take out a couple hundred dollars cash. You know, I could remember $200, you know, because if I do not carry my checkbook with me and I take money out of the MAC machine, I could remember taking $200 out, and I know the service charge is $2. So I could remember to take $200 — tomorrow when I am pulling out my checkbook at the grocery store, I remember to take out $202, but under this amendment, sales tax is going to be applied to that service charge. So now I have got to remember, you know, how much I took out and not just that but what the service charge is and now I have to apply the sales tax to the service, to the service charge at the ATM machine (automated teller machine) ...

Continued Page 187:
... When you are trying to subject goods and services that have never been subject to the sales tax, when you are trying for the first time to apply the sales tax on that, you are not exactly certain as to how much revenue that is going to generate because these things have never been taxed before ...

... Mr. Speaker, the other thing we have not looked at is what impact this amendment would have on the State's economy. Taxing things that have never been subject to the tax, raising the State personal income tax by 25 percent – those things are going to have a dramatic consequence in terms of our State's economy, and it is unpredictable at this point. It is a shot in the dark.

Page 193:
The SPEAKER. Representative Longietti.
The difference between this amendment and many of the other proposals is that this amendment would broaden or tax services that we have not traditionally taxed in Pennsylvania. We would tax things for the first time. And one of the problems that I have with this amendment is that it drives up the cost of doing business. It makes Pennsylvania uncompetitive. And it is particularly harsh on small businesses, because now businesses that have not collected sales tax for the first time would have to hire staff, collect the tax, account for the tax, remit the tax on a quarterly basis, and be audited on the tax ...

Continued Page 194:
... So when you look at this amendment, it taxes far too many things and it drives up the cost of business, particularly small business. It makes us uncompetitive. It is not helpful to economic development. In fact, it is harmful to economic development in that regard and could lead to job cuts. So inasmuch as I am in favor of property tax relief, this measure is the wrong approach for all those reasons, and for those reasons I respectfully ask my colleagues to join me in voting against this amendment.

House Legislative Journal Jan 29, 2008:

Page 217:
Mr. STAIRS. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
If I may, I would like to be brief in this long discussion. In my many years as a legislator, I have heard the negatives on the property tax and have not really seen too many people that like the property tax. It seems it is despised by all. So that means it is about time we do something. But certainly the legislation in front of us right now, this amendment, I think is the wrong way to go. When people find out what their taxes are going to be, if this was ever implemented, there would probably be a revolution in this Commonwealth.

Page 220:
Mr. GEORGE. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Mr. Speaker, I certainly will not be long.
This is the second day we are working with an amendment, and I do not begrudge the time in that we both, both Republicans and Democrats, have been for a dozen years when they each had the majority, had promised some relief on property tax. But whether the pain is in the arm or in the leg, removing it from one part of the body to another does not remove the pain, and the sales tax is the most regressive tax that any working family has to put up with. You know, if an individual lost his job, he still has to pay that homeowner's tax, but he still has to use what little he has to pay sales tax ...

… And adhering to what we have promised, that Pennsylvania now will adopt a plan to help those people in despair, to help those small businesses, to help these individuals who find this aggressive tax more aggressive than ever, but nevertheless, the sales tax is just as aggressive as this is, and I ask that we defeat this amendment.

Page 226:
The SPEAKER. Representative Daley.
Mr. DALEY. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
... The financial institutions would also face an additional financial burden to change and manage the processes to capture and pay sales and use taxes on this expanded base. Fourthly, the Pennsylvania banks and out-of-State banks, as something that should concern all of us, would be viewed as equals with regard to services performed out of State for Pennsylvania customers, but compliance by out-of-State banks with the use tax in Pennsylvania would be absolutely difficult to enforce and would result, likely, to be unfair to our own banks. That competitive disadvantage for Pennsylvania banks would cause them to move more of their operations out of the State of Pennsylvania. The result could reduce tax revenues, not increase them, and this is according to the financial institutions in Pennsylvania. Services that many community banks purchase from third-party vendors could be deemed to be financial services and subject to taxation. Larger financial institutions offer back-office and other services that could be subject to the 6-percent sales tax.

Page 228:
The SPEAKER. The Chair recognizes the majority leader,
Representative DeWeese.
Mr. DeWEESE. Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker.
I will keep my remarks exceedingly brief. I just want to make two quick points. I think many times our debates are enhanced when we go back home in our commentary. The two major reasons I will be counterpoised against my good friend from Berks today come from Harry Readshaw's debate yesterday and from debate from Ms. Harper earlier today. Number one, my Republican colleagues for many years have been against the inheritance tax. They have called it the death tax. I think the Rohrer amendment could conceivably be a death-tax amendment. I think that if you go back to Greene County and talk to Chuck Behm at the Behm Funeral Home or over at the Milliken funeral facility or go down to talk to John Maykuth over in Masontown, and tell them that not only are their services going to be taxed but their vaults are going to be taxed, their caskets are going to be taxed, and if there is a probate dynamic at the end of that unhappy moment, the lawyer fees will be taxed. I just cannot think that amongst the tens and tens and tens of very good reasons that people have come to the microphone today to counter the honorable gentleman from Berks, preeminent in my thought process is I want to look at this as an additional death tax or a series of death taxes.

Page 230:
The Chair recognizes Representative Levdansky.
Mr. LEVDANSKY. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
... Also, as I pointed out, the devil really is in the details. It really is in the details. This plan, this plan will tax practically everything from day care to death, and almost everything that happens in your life in between will be subject to the sales tax. I think there is just too much uncertainty and unpredictability about what that will mean for Pennsylvania's economy and what that means for funding public education in the Commonwealth.

All's quiet; an important meeting

2009-08-18T12:34:00.003-04:00

19 August 2009

Dear Friends,

It’s been quite a while since the last PTCC Update and many of you have written to ask what’s happening with the School Property Tax Elimination Act (SPTEA). In a word, nothing. The General Assembly and the House and Senate leadership are far too occupied with budget concerns right now to consider any far-reaching legislation.

The SPTEA has been fully drafted and is still available for co-sponsorship. It is Representative Sam Rohrer’s intention to issue a second co-sponsorship memorandum shortly and then formally introduce the bill this autumn.

In the meantime, if you want to help you can contact your Representative to request his or her co-sponsorship of the School Property Tax Elimination Act. The bill currently has 26 sponsors but more is always better. The current sponsors are listed below; please contact your Representative if he or she is not on this list. In many cases you will be offered phony excuses why they won’t co-sponsor or why the plan won’t work, but this is almost always because of petty political maneuvering that has nothing to do with the worthiness of the bill. Accept no excuses!

The current School Property Tax Elimination Act co-sponsors:

Rep. Sam Rohrer R-128 (Berks)
Rep. Kerry Benninghoff R-171 (Centre, Mifflin)
Rep. Karen Boback R-117 (Columbia, Luzerne, Wyoming)
Rep. Thomas Caltagirone D-127 (Berks)
Rep. Jim Cox R-129 (Berks)
Rep. Tom Creighton R-37 (Lancaster)
Rep. Gary Day R-187 (Berks, Lehigh)
Rep. Gordon Denlinger R-99 (Lancaster)
Rep. Russell Fairchild R-85 (Snyder, Union)
Rep. Jaret Gibbons D-10 (Beaver, Butler, Lawrence)
Rep. Keith Gillespie R-47 (York)
Rep. Neal Goodman D-123 (Schuylkill)
Rep. Seth Grove R-196 (York)
Rep. C. Adam Harris R-82 (Juniata, Mifflin, Snyder)
Rep. Rob Kauffman R-89 (Cumberland, Franklin)
Rep. Mark Keller R-86 (Franklin, Perry)
Rep. Jerry Knowles R-124 (Berks, Schuylkill)
Rep. Tim Mahoney D-51 (Fayette)
Rep. Bob Mensch R-147 (Montgomery)
Rep. Merle Phillips R-108 (Northumberland, Snyder)
Rep. Thomas Quigley R-146 (Montgomery)
Rep. Dante Santoni D-126 (Berks)
Rep. Stan Saylor R-94 (York)
Rep. Curt Schroder R-155 (Chester)
Rep. Tim Seip D-125 (Berks, Schuylkill)
Rep. RoseMarie Swanger R-102 (Lebanon)

The PTCC and the Pennsylvania Coalition of Taxpayer Associations send our heartfelt gratitude to those Representatives who have agreed to co-sponsor the SPTEA. If your Representative is on this list, we STRONGLY request that you contact him or her to thank them for their co-sponsorship. These legislators are always very encouraged to know that their help is appreciated.

Whether you are contacting your Representative to thank them or to request their co-sponsorship, you can find their contact information by Zip+4 here.

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Northeast Pennsylvania Information Session

Northeast Pennsylvania is by far the worst region of the state for legislative support for the School Property Tax Elimination Act. To help overcome this problem, the five Northeast region member groups of the Pennsylvania Coalition of Taxpayer Associations will be holding a public information session about the SPTEA in late September. These five grassroots groups will introduce their organizations, the details of the SPTEA will be presented, and the politics of the SPTEA enactment will be discussed; there will also be an audience participation question and answer session following the presentation. The event will be emceed by Sue Henry of WILK radio. This promises to be an exciting evening, so please watch for a future PTCC Update for further details and plan to attend.

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Welcome CEPT!

The Pennsylvania Coalition of Taxpayer Associations (PCTA) recently gained its thirty-second member group! Citizens for the Elimination of Property Taxes from Perry County has already proven to be a hard-working, dedicated organization that will be a big help in supporting the SPTEA in South-central Pennsylvania. If you live in the Perry County area and want to help you can contact them at nopropertytax@gmail.com. Welcome to the PCTA, CEPT! We’re pleased to have you aboard to keep the momentum building.

If you’re fed up with unfair taxation and unresponsive politicians and would like to form your own taxpayer advocacy group, contact any PCTA member group for advice and assistance. The PCTA members are listed on the PTCC website under the “About the PCTA” tab.

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Just one more note: If you change your e-mail address, please send a note to me about the switch so you’ll continue to receive the PTCC Updates. It will be appreciated.

That’s all for now. There’ll be another update when more information is available and please watch for details about the Northeast Pennsylvania event.

As usual, I want to thank all of you for your continuing support of the PTCC and PCTA efforts to bring about true education finance reform and school property tax elimination. You are truly appreciated.

David Baldinger
PTCC Administrator
www.ptcc.us

Reading Eagle Editorial and Response

2009-05-24T11:12:00.002-04:00

On May 14, 2009, the Reading Eagle published an outrageous editorial titled "Sales tax is not the means to eliminate property tax" that strongly opposed the School Property Tax Elimination Act.

You can read the editorial on the Reading Eagle website here.

The editorial was damaging enough, but, even worse, the piece was loaded with false information from beginning to end - in fact, not one thing this editorial said was correct. If the Eagle wants to oppose the SPTEA that is their right but they could at least do it without resorting to false information to prove their point. What ever happened to journalistic integrity?

Who researched this for the Eagle editorial board? How could the Eagle editorial board get this so wrong? What is their agenda for printing so much incorrect information? It is obvious from the glaring errors that they knew nothing about the details of the SPTEA. It was irresponsible of the Eagle to not get the facts correct before taking such a slanted editorial stance.

The SPTEA prime sponsor, Representative Sam Rohrer (128-Berks), requested equal space for a rebuttal op-ed piece but was denied. Instead, he was told to submit his rebuttal as a 200 word letter to the editor; this is nowhere near the space required to fully correct the many errors. To allow Representative Rohrer the opportunity to completely rebut the editorial, we have posted his full version below.

If you would care to write your own letter to the editor regarding this, send it to letters@readingeagle.com.

Editorial Response

Your most recent editorial (“Sales tax is not the means to eliminate property tax,” Reading Eagle, May 14) called me “persistent.” In that spirit, I wish to respond to the editorial and respectfully disagree with your assessment.

First, briefly, I would like to point out that the 501 school districts do not levy a sales tax, but rather a property tax, which does indeed raise $9.9 billion.

“Widening the sales tax to cover some items that currently are not taxed very well could raise an additional $1.3 billion.”

In fact, based on the Pennsylvania Department of Revenue’s figures from the past few years, widening the sales tax can and will raise an additional $7 billion because we are now including many previously untaxed goods and most services. To ensure that we do not have to tax food and clothing, the plan also proposes taking a portion of the extraordinary proven future revenues raised by royalty payments located on state-owned Marcellus Shale natural gas fields.

“But remember that the money raised by the sales tax goes into the general fund...so the expanded sales tax would have to raise $18.5 billion in order to replace the real estate tax and to continue funding the things already funded by the sales tax.”

Currently, the sales tax does go into the General Fund but is essentially allocated for the purpose of funding education and does not need to be replaced as you claim. My plan does not take money away from the General Fund. Instead, it takes all the current sales tax revenue designated for education and moves it into a separate and protected Educational Operating Fund. As such, both the current sales tax and the new, expanded sales tax, would be protected from normal General Fund expenditures and reserved only for education—as it should be.

Since my plan does not take any money away from General Fund appropriations, the sales tax would only have to replace $7 billion in homestead/farmstead school property tax revenue—nowhere near the $18.5 billion that you claim.

“And one must take into account that in this economy, the sales tax is not raising as much money as it has in better times.”

It is indeed unfortunate that these economic times are stretching the resources of our citizens and businesses like few other times in our nation’s history. While the Eagle points out that cutting spending would necessitate cutting personnel or debt payments, the schools must first cut extracurricular and non-educational programs, where there is currently room. Second, I fully recognize the difficulties of school districts facing unfunded mandates from both the state and the federal government, and agree that these burdensome requirements need to be altered or funded as promised. The premise, however, is that schools and their programs are not sacred cows and in times of revenue shortfalls must reduce expenses just like all homeowners.

“We have long advocated an income tax to fill that role [of the property tax].”

Finally, please know that I am first and foremost concerned with the elimination of school property taxes. If we can find another way to do so, I will not hesitate to support any plan that frees homeowners from this onerous burden. In my sixteen years in office, however, I am firmly convinced that the plan we have formulated is in the best interests of education and the citizens of Pennsylvania. In this particular plan, I point to the same Department of Revenue April revenue figures the Eagle quoted: sales tax revenue is down 6.7%, but the income tax was down over 10%. The facts are clear: the sales tax is the most stable way to provide funding for our schools and it was begun in 1953 expressly for this purpose.

The bottom line is that no one wants to cut anything. This is not a political plan—this is a financial and fiscal plan. As an elected official, I have the responsibility to do what is legislatively and fiscally sound, even if it is not politically expedient. I am grateful for this opportunity to add significant facts to this debate, and welcome the continued public discussion.

Rep. Samuel Rohrer
128th District
Pennsylvania House of Representatives

The SPTEA is Announced; 2009 gambling rebates posted.

2009-05-04T19:09:00.000-04:00

Update and ** ACTION ITEM **

05 May 2009

Dear Friends,

There have been many developments on the property tax front during the past week. To keep from overloading you, this update covers only three of the items; the remainder will be sent in a later update.

2009 SPTEA Announced!

On Monday, May 4, Representative Sam Rohrer (128–Berks) announced this session’s introduction of House Bill 1275, the School Property Tax Elimination Act, in a press release. The release is copied below my signature.

The new bill will be formally introduced in the Pennsylvania House of Representatives in the near future. Until this happens, we need to gather as many co-sponsors as possible for this bill.

** ACTION ITEM **

This is VERY important! If you will, please contact your representative as soon as possible to firmly request his or her co-sponsorship of HB 1275, the School Property Tax Elimination Act. Although some representatives may offer more of their lame excuses for not co-sponsoring, please do not accept them! You can find your representative and contact information by Zip+4 here.

Further, please circulate this update as widely as possible to your friends, neighbors, and relatives and ask all of them to also contact their representative. The more co-sponsors we have on the bill the better our chances for action.

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2009 Gambling-funded property tax relief posted

On May 1 the Pennsylvania Department of Education released the preliminary estimated 2009 tax relief from gambling money for most Pennsylvania School Districts. For many homeowners the amount of the relief is about the same as last year and varies between $32 and $641, depending on your school district.

The relief charts have been posted on the PTCC website here. Please note that the relief numbers are incomplete for some districts because a few counties have not yet reported their number of eligible homesteads. The charts will be updated as new information becomes available.

Don't get too excited about your huge and historic (Governor Rendell's words) “relief” money and don't plan to spend all of it in one place!

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New SPTEA 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 later this year 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 me I'd appreciate it - I'll send them invitations to join the PTCC e-mail list.

The five page petition is available as a PDF file on the PTCC website here. You can print it as five separate pages or flip the paper over and print both sides.

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.

I'd like to express my sincere appreciation to Jeff for his work and initiative in starting this effort. Thanks, Jeff!

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That’s all for today. As I mentioned above, I’ll send another PTCC Update shortly to cover other items that have developed during the past week.

My sincere thanks to all of you for your continuing support of our efforts to eliminate property taxes and reform the Pennsylvania education finance system.

Please feel free to write to me at any time with questions or concerns.

David Baldinger
PTCC Administrator
www.ptcc.us

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
May 4, 2009

Rohrer Reintroduces School Property Tax Elimination Act

Touting the benefits Pennsylvania has lost by not acting sooner, Rohrer says eliminating the unfair tax would jumpstart Pennsylvania’s economy

HARRISBURG— Hailing it as the single most important step Pennsylvania lawmakers could take to jumpstart the state’s economy, prime sponsor Rep. Sam Rohrer (R-Berks) today unveiled the School Property Tax Elimination Act (SPTEA).

“The SPTEA offers a dramatic comparison to the current federal stimulus plan,” Rohrer said. “Compared to the federal stimulus of $18 billion over three years, the SPTEA would infuse approximately $7 billion annually into the economy, as homeowners are freed from their onerous property tax bills. The magnitude of the plan simply dwarfs any other options, without using government spending or subsidies, and puts billions into the hands of our citizens to pay their bills, invest in the economy or support local businesses.

“No tax should have the power to leave you homeless,” Rohrer continued. “Seniors citizens, retired couples, young families, recently laid-off workers—through no fault of their own, all these people are standing on the precipice of losing their homes, as their pensions have plummeted and incomes have been reduced or even eliminated. For families struggling to make mortgage payments, this plan offers the only true hope of remaining in their homes and securing their home ownership.”

The bill is distinctive in that it remains the only plan that has the capacity and the simplicity to present a comprehensive restructuring of the way Pennsylvania funds its schools and addresses issues of spending controls, predictability, debt, and distribution. Instead of relying on local school property taxes, school districts would receive their primary source of funding from an expanded state sales tax. The sales tax rate would remain at 6 percent, but would be expanded to include some currently tax-exempt items. Food, clothing, prescription medications and other essential items and services would not be taxed under Rohrer’s plan. The SPTEA also would use new rent and royalty payments generated through expanded natural gas harvesting activities on state forest lands to fund Pennsylvania schools.

“Partial reduction is not the answer,” Rohrer stated. “Taxes continue to rise unabated, and the governor’s so-called ‘Property Tax Relief Fund’ barely makes a dent in what most taxpayers have to pay. It’s a political response, designed to alleviate the problem and never solve it, and it has distracted from the real issue. The only solution is complete and total elimination.”

Funds from the expanded state sales tax and the revenues from Marcellus Shale natural gas development would be deposited into a newly created Education Operating Fund (EOF). The money in the EOF would be used to implement a four-year phase out of school district property taxes. The phase-out would ensure a smooth transition into the new system without disrupting normal operations of either schools or businesses.

“When we first introduced the idea of school property tax elimination, our proposal ran parallel with Governor Rendell’s proposal to use gambling proceeds to relieve—never solve—the property tax burden,” Rohrer said. “Here we are, seven years later, and homeowners have received just one payment, and a pittance at that, to help with their taxes. Had we enacted the SPTEA back then, we would have already passed through the four-year phase out. Homeowners would not only be free from paying any school property taxes, but the state would have had the time to build up the excess revenue in order to weather this current economic storm.”

The SPTEA addresses the spending side of the equation, tying the school districts’ revenue to the sales tax. Under the current system, as overall property tax revenue decreases because of increasing foreclosures and delinquencies, schools are forced to consider raising their property tax rates, further burdening those who can pay and creating a vicious cycle of foreclosures and delinquencies. Under Rohrer’s plan, the sales tax would continue to create a stable form of revenue. Even in difficult economic climates when the sales tax revenue declines, schools would be forced, along with all Pennsylvanians, to reduce their spending.

Rohrer argued that using the state sales tax to fund education poses significant benefits over the existing property tax system. Specifically, he noted that the sales tax was instituted in 1953 expressly for the purpose of educational funding, and as such remains the best-suited source for the schools because sales tax revenue—and thus school revenue—will grow as the economy improves. In addition, Pennsylvanians will have more control over the amount of taxes they pay, as they can increase or reduce their tax burden based on the purchases they make. Finally, sales tax revenue is sensitive to economic realities, ensuring that when Pennsylvania families are forced to reduce their consumption, schools also will be forced to reign in their spending.

Rohrer’s plan also offers the first real opportunity for voters to have direct control over any future tax increases. Under the SPTEA, any future tax increases would have to be approved by voters through a ballot referendum.

“Under the provisions of Act 1, the voter referendums we have are what I like to call ‘taxpayer protection in name only,’” Rohrer said. “Sure, we have a law that says voters are supposed to have the right to approve or deny any school tax increases. But the Department of Education usually grants the district an exemption and the voters never have a chance to vote on the tax increase. My plan offers real voter empowerment where previous plans offered only false hope.”

“For years, school property tax elimination seemed like a pie-in-the-sky idea to lawmakers in Harrisburg—a noble but impractical goal,” Rohrer said. “But we have a plan to make that dream a reality. Now, it is only a matter of whether state lawmakers choose to listen to their constituents and then act upon their cries in order to make that dream come true for Pennsylvania property taxpayers.”

The SPTEA will be introduced as House Bill 1275. For more information about the proposal, visit Rohrer’s Web site at SamRohrer.com.

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No property tax relief this year? And a deputy sheriff speaks out.

2009-03-27T09:43:00.003-04:00

27 March 2009

Dear Friends,

Today’s update contains a few notes of interest and two stories that will probably infuriate you and will strongly emphasize the need to continue our efforts for property tax elimination.

- There’s not much to report about the reintroduction of the School Property Tax Elimination Act (SPTEA). Although no definite date has been set, we’re expecting an introduction of the bill before the end of April. I’ll send an update immediately when we know more.

- Most people who are paying a mortgage have their property tax bills sent directly to their mortgage holder and a property tax escrow amount is included in their monthly payment. When they receive their annual escrow analysis that includes an increase in their monthly payment, many of these folks just consider this a part of doing business and are unaware of the total amount of taxes paid. When you ask folks to support the SPTEA, please tell them to look at their total property tax bill to see how much they can save if school taxes are totally eliminated.

- A PTCC subscriber sent me a response from Senate Majority Leader Dominic Pileggi (R-9) to a letter he wrote asking for the senator’s help in enacting the SPTEA. Senator Pileggi’s reply contained more than a page of useless rhetoric followed by his endorsement of slots money for property tax “relief” (more about this below). From the tone of his letter, it is pretty obvious that Senator Pileggi has no interest whatsoever in tackling the elimination property taxes. This is unfortunate since he, as Majority Leader, has the power to determine the flow of legislation in the senate. All of you, and especially those in his district, might want to send Senator Pileggi a letter advising him of your displeasure at his inaction on this issue. dpileggi@pasen.gov

- The Pennsylvania Coalition of Taxpayer Associations (PCTA) is pleased to announce the addition of the 31st taxpayer group to the alliance. The Wyoming County Concerned Taxpayers joined us earlier in March in support of the SPTEA and we’re excited to have them as part of our coalition. Welcome! If you’re a resident of Wyoming County, please consider joining this very active and focused group. Contact information is available on the PTCC website under the “About the PCTA” tab. If you’ve considered starting a taxpayer group in your area and need help, contact any PCTA member group for assistance.

- Just one more short item: Each month we lose a few PTCC subscribers because they’ve changed their e-mail address or internet service provider. If your e-mail address changes, please send a brief note with the old and new addresses so you will continue to receive the updates.

Now for the stories …

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No property tax relief this year?

In the March 23 edition of the Harrisburg Patriot-News, reporter Sharon Smith wrote an article

By law, the property tax relief fund must reach a trigger level of $570 million by April 15 before the state can distribute any “relief”. A spokesperson for the Governor’s Budget Office indicated that revenue through the end of February will total about $505 million, leaving a $65 million shortfall to be made up by the certification date. Average monthly relief revenue is about $46 million, so it is very possible that the trigger level will not be reached. Even if it is, the amount of relief will be even less than the minimal amount that was distributed last year.

This has a number of very ugly consequences, especially for those who live in modest homes in school districts where last year’s relief was greatest. Here’s a quick example that was calculated by a finance expert who is a member of our coalition:

Last year’s property tax relief in the York School District was $525. The total gross school property tax on a home assessed at approximately $34,000 was $1,000, leaving that homeowner with a $475 net tax bill after the reduction. If there is no property tax relief this year, this homeowner will have to pay the full $1,000 - a tax increase of 110% over last year’s bill, and this assumes that there will be no increase in this year’s school property taxes. If the York SD increases taxes to the 6.5% Act 1 limit, this homeowner will pay $1065, a tax increase of 124% over last year!

Using the same math, a York SD home that is assessed at the $55,000 average for the district would see a 57.3% increase.

But it can get even worse.

The immediate impact could be much more than what you’d think if a person's real estate taxes are escrowed. Using the average assessed home value above as an example, the property tax could go up about $600, which means the mortgage company will likely be that much "short" when they make the tax payment this summer. First, they'll have to make up the shortfall for this year by adding $50+ to your monthly payment. Second, they'll raise the escrow at least another $50+ per month for next year's bill so they aren't behind in the escrow again next year. The potential result? A double-whammy of about $1,200, or $100 per month. This could vary depending on how far under or over you are with your current escrow balance.

In short, look for little to no “relief” this year and the real possibility of some pain compared to last year.

This is the sad result of the “substantial” property tax relief that was promised to us by the governor and the lawmakers who were the rabid proponents of legalized gambling. Do you still believe that legalizing slot machines was about property tax relief? Can you believe that they are still insisting that this is the answer to the property tax crisis? All of the bogus property tax “relief” plans that have been, and continue to be, foisted on us are motivated by nothing more than worthless, self-serving politics that has no regard whatsoever for the taxpayers.

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A Deputy Sheriff speaks out!

It is estimated that about 10,000 homes are sold at sheriff’s sale each year in Pennsylvania. Even though that number in itself is shocking, few of us know the truly revolting details of how this is done.

In January I received a letter from a deputy sheriff that described the process of evicting a family whose home is being sold at a sheriff’s sale. While I have no reason to doubt the letter’s accuracy, I nonetheless submitted it to a deputy in a different area of the state who verified that the facts are correct. Here’s the letter:

****

From:
Date: Jan 19, 2009
Subject: A Deputy Sheriff's View of Property Tax Seizures

Dear David,

I have to write you this note because of disgust I have with the excessive taxes and the ugly result that is happening to our property owners in Pennsylvania.

I am a Deputy Sheriff in Pennsylvania. One of the duties of our job is to serve foreclosure notices and conduct physical evictions on property owners. Imagine having someone knock on your door up to 10:00 P.M. in the evening. You answer the door and are faced with two or more Deputy Sheriffs in full uniform with a marked sheriff’s car outside. The local police may already been notified in the event of a "problem". The neighbors may be watching. One of the deputies presents you with a court order stating that you are being evicted from your home due to unpaid property taxes. This process may already taken a year or so before coming to this tragic end, but the property owner knows it's coming. The property owner reacts with fear, uncertainty, anger and shame.

You advise the owner and family present that they have a "short" (fifteen minutes or so) time to vacate the premises. The wife starts crying, the kids are screaming and it gets ugly. Emotions are at their highest. You follow (for the safety of the deputies) the residents through their house and "allow" them to pack a few bags before they are "escorted" out of the house and off the property. Sometimes even the vehicles are seized as a result of default thereby making the owners and family leave on foot. A latch and lock bolts are attached to the doors and notices are posted that the house is now available for "Sheriff’s Sale".

This is real life reenactment of what we do. It's dirty, disgusting and shameful. How can this happen you may ask yourself? Let me tell you. Your local municipality and school district elected officials are often incompetent and lack any business experience and/or training. They levy tax after tax after tax on "improvements" that your "representatives" see fit for the "good" of the community. New and "improved" multimillion dollar schools and township buildings are built resulting in "needed additional taxes". These ever increasing taxes are levied on top of your already high taxes. The two working parent/partner property owners struggle to pay these taxes BUT now the working, retired, disabled or low wage earning family just can't keep up. They are unable to pay these excessive taxes and go into default. Additional fines and penalties are assessed, further aggravating the situation. Eventually a court action is levied by the county against the owner and the property is seized (sometimes by force and arrest). YES, BY THE SHOW OF OR ACTUAL PHYSICAL FORCE AND ARREST!

Now is the time to stop this abuse. Restructure the way we are assessed taxes and save the homes of hard working, retired and disabled property owners in Pennsylvania. Have the Deputy Sheriffs do what we do best and that is Law Enforcement, not tax collectors and evictors! Remember, our country seceded from the British rule but not without an ugly price. History is reliving itself. Remember the revolution. Is it necessary to come to that? It may be.

****

This letter starkly illustrates the horrific abuse to which good, decent, law-abiding homeowners of Pennsylvania are being subjected; they are treated like criminals simply because they can no longer afford to pay tribute to their government and schools through inequitable and subjective property taxes. Perhaps we should find a way to make every Harrisburg politician who opposes property tax elimination ride with a deputy on one of these seizures to see firsthand the devastation that is caused by their inaction and selfish political games.

I sent you these stories today to emphasize the need for us to do everything possible to end this injustice. We knew from the beginning that the road to property tax elimination would be long and difficult and that fighting the entrenched, corrupt political establishment would be a struggle. But no matter how weary or discouraged we may become, WE CANNOT GIVE UP! The politicians depend on the taxpayers to have short memories and little patience and they will continue to give us the runaround in the hope that we will give up and go away. We must demonstrate to them that we will not yield until they have returned to us what is rightfully ours: To be secure in our homes and property.

For the cause,

David Baldinger
PTCC Administrator
www.ptcc.us

A Letter From the Speaker

2009-02-13T08:23:00.000-05:00

13 February 2009

A letter from the Speaker

Dear Friends,

In January we reported about a recent commentary in the Wilkes-Barre Times-Leader where Luzerne County Representative Todd Eachus, the new majority leader, said: “The state House of Representatives is under new management and has new priorities, and the people of Pennsylvania will determine those priorities.”

But, alas, the more things change, the more they stay the same.

In the last update we suggested that you write to Representative Eachus and Representative Keith McCall, the new House Speaker, to request that they support school property tax elimination. Many of you did this and a few of you sent Speaker McCall’s form letter reply to me. Copied below is his letter, followed by my comments.

From: "Wegert, Debbie"
To:
Date: Wed, 4 Feb 2009
Subject: property tax

Rep. McCall asked that I forward the following response to your inquiry.

Thank you for your e-mail about the need for property tax relief. I am very aware of how property taxes have impacted homeowners across the Commonwealth.

Last session, the Pennsylvania House of Representatives took preliminary, yet solid, steps toward property tax reform. Of particular note, the House passed House Bill 1947 of the 2007-08 Legislative Session, which was a constitutional amendment that would allow for the elimination of school property taxes on primary homes and farms. This type of legislation is considered a key procedural effort to constitutionally allow Pennsylvania to fund a 100 percent exemption rather than what the constitution currently provides – fifty percent of the median assessed value, which ranges from a ten to twenty five percent reduction. Without this enabling language, all other efforts to fully relieve Pennsylvanians of school property taxes would be futile. This legislation will be reintroduced in the very near future.

The House also debated proposals that provided for the complete elimination of property taxes. Complete elimination is the ultimate goal; however, the Commonwealth needs to fill a potential $15 billion dollar hole when those taxes are abolished. There is no secret formula to fill the funding gap to pay for schools without implementing a tax shift or new taxes. We must work together to fill this funding gap.

As the General Assembly begins the 2009-10 Legislative Session, my colleagues and I will be tasked with addressing a myriad of issues such as education, health care, alternative energy and property tax reform all while tackling a growing state budget deficit. I do not expect the sluggish economy to change overnight; however, I do remain optimistic for our future. In regards to property tax reform, in such difficult economic times, the legislature needs to consider what the average taxpayer can afford to pay in order to fill such a possible funding gap with the elimination of property taxes.

The issue of trying to provide tax relief during a recession is certainly complex in nature and the legislature is giving its due diligence. The legislature is preparing to begin a dialogue on property tax reform and the constitutional amendment will probably be the first order of business. Your comments will be kept in mind as the discussion unfolds.

Please rest assured that I am cognizant of how rising property taxes, a national mortgage crisis, and a weak national economy coupled with a growing state deficit and rising prices are hitting hard-working families where it hurts. Please know that I strive to lessen the burden on Pennsylvania taxpayers, including providing property tax relief, and will continue my efforts on behalf of all Pennsylvanians.

Again, thank you for writing. I truly appreciate your feedback on this important issue.

Sincerely,

KEITH R. McCALL
The Speaker
122nd Legislative District

Apparently Speaker McCall thinks we’re all pretty stupid and that we’re going to simply accept his letter as gospel. Here are the facts:

His first statement sets the tone for the rest of the letter: “the Pennsylvania House of Representatives took preliminary, yet solid, steps toward property tax reform.” Sure they did. The full House worked a total of TWO days on property tax issues during the entire two years of the 2007-2008 legislative session. When HB 1600, the worthless “relief” bill championed by Speaker McCall’s caucus leadership, went down in flames, his leaders panicked and immediately sent all pending property tax bills to the Finance Committee where they remained until they died at the end of the session in November. Solid steps, indeed!

Next, he boasts about House Bill 1947, legislation that died in the Senate. This bill was sponsored by Representative David Levdansky, one of the most vocal opponents of school property tax elimination. This immediately makes the bill's intent suspect.

HB 1947 was an amendment to change the uniformity clause of the PA Constitution, which states that taxes cannot be levied unequally on entities within the same taxing body. The bill's purpose was to allow different tax rates for homesteads and businesses. But the devil is in the details.

HB 1947 would ALLOW a 100% homestead exemption from property taxes but in itself would not mandate or guarantee total elimination; the reduction allowed could be any amount up to 100%. Further, HB 1947 by itself did NOTHING - it would require further enabling legislation in the future to have any effect whatsoever. There was no assurance that this would ever happen.

In short, HB 1947 was simply more political deception to try to make taxpayers believe that the legislature was actually doing something about property taxes.

Now Speaker McCall wants to reintroduce the bill this session. Because a Constitutional amendment requires passage by two succeeding sessions of the General Assembly, a difficult task by itself, plus a voter referendum, the absolute earliest that the bill could become law is 2011, although this could occur much later. Only then would enabling legislation be considered. This is a great way to delay property tax elimination indefinitely.

Despite Speaker McCall's statement that without this legislation “all other efforts… would be futile”, the School Property Tax Elimination Act is written in such a manner that it can become effective IMMEDIATELY upon passage WITHOUT the need to first pass an amendment like HB 1947. This statement from Speaker McCall is totally disingenuous.

In the next paragraph, Speaker McCall states that $15 billion is required to fill the gap left from elimination. This is completely false unless he is talking about ALL property taxes, including county and municipal, but this has not been the immediate goal of our efforts and he knows this.

The total of homestead/farmstead SCHOOL property taxes to be eliminated by the School Property Tax Elimination Act is about $7 billion; the total for all school property taxes, including businesses, is about $11 billion. Neither amount approaches the $15 billion stated by Speaker McCall. This is simply more deception to support his opposition to elimination.

In the same paragraph Speaker McCall says there is no way to fill the funding gap without a tax shift. What’s his point? Although he makes this sound objectionable, we all know that elimination will require a shift to other taxes; the goal is to shift to taxes that are more equitable than the property tax. Most Pennsylvania homeowners support a tax shift as long as school property taxes are ELIMINATED.

In his third paragraph he wails about difficult economic times and "what the average taxpayer can afford to pay" to eliminate the school property tax. Which is better, a few hundred dollars in sales tax or thousands of dollars in school property tax? Which is better, a few hundred dollars in sales tax or losing your home? This is a baseless argument that is yet another example of making excuses to avoid dealing with the issue.

Next, Speaker McCall whines about the property tax issue being "complex in nature". Without a doubt this is true, but no more so than the enactment of a massive gambling law that was passed in the middle of the night with no public input and little chance for rank-and-file legislators to review the language. Complex laws CAN be quickly enacted if the courage, leadership, and will to do so are present. Unfortunately, these virtues are embraced by few members of the General Assembly, with many who prefer lies, deceit and cowardice to true statesmanship. The taxpayers of Pennsylvania are left to suffer from their inaction and lack of integrity.

Finally, Speaker McCall says he will strive for property tax "relief". The homeowners of Pennsylvania have had enough fraudulent, ill-conceived "relief" schemes that are simply tax increases in disguise. We want total ELIMINATION! Apparently Speaker McCall either just doesn't get it or is callously ignoring the plight of Pennsylvania homeowners.

Speaker McCall’s letter is typical of the kind of trash we've been fed during the past thirty years, so it appears that nothing has changed despite the House majority leadership’s promise of "new management and new priorities".

Please consider forwarding today’s update to friends, family, and co-workers. One way to help end this kind of chicanery is to expose the politicians’ dishonesty and hypocrisy to as many folks as possible.

If you wish, you can also write to Speaker McCall and to your Pennsylvania Representative and Senator to let them know your reaction to Speaker McCall’s letter. Speaker McCall’s contact information is below; you can find your legislators’ information from the “Find Your Legislators” link on the left side of any PTCC web page. Please send any responses to me for comment if you’d care to do so.

Hon. Keith R. McCall
162 West Ridge Street
Lansford, PA 18232
(570) 645-7585
Fax: (570) 645-9526
E-mail: kmccall@pahouse.net

It's easy to become discouraged by letters like Speaker McCall’s, but don't let it happen. This kind of attempted deception simply makes me more resolute and I hope that it will do the same for you. We cannot allow the self-serving, unethical politicians to trample our rights and we must keep up the fight. As one PTCC subscriber wrote to me: “Sometimes it makes me wonder just how stupid the politicians in Harrisburg think we taxpayers are. Most of us are able to see through the maze of deception that they try to snow us with. WE ARE NOT GOING AWAY."

To all of you, please hang in there and do what you can to help the cause. If we stick together we can beat the underhanded schemes of the politicians who oppose property tax elimination and we WILL get this done.

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One more brief note: Please check out the new “How Can I Help” page on the PTCC website at www.ptcc.us. There you’ll find lots of good suggestions on how to work for school property tax elimination.

As always, my heartfelt thanks go out to all of you who are working to support this effort. Your help is greatly appreciated.

Please feel free to write with comments or suggestions.

David Baldinger
PTCC Administrator
pataxpayers@gmail.com

Update - The New Legislature

2009-01-09T17:02:00.003-05:00

09 January 2009

Dear Friends,

Happy New Year to all!

Today’s update will not have a great deal of information; we’re in a holding pattern because of the new session of the General Assembly but I’ll tell you as much as we know right now.

The 2009-2010 session of the Pennsylvania Senate will convene on January 20 and the House of Representatives will convene on January 26.

We know that the School Property Tax Elimination Act (SPTEA) will be re-introduced in the House early in this session, although we do not yet have a date. Because all pending legislation expired with the close of the last legislative session on November 30, the re-introduced SPTEA may have a bill number other than the HB 1275 used in the 2007-2008 session. I’ll send more details immediately when they become available.

We also know that Senator Mike Folmer (R-48) will be introducing a similar or possibly identical bill in the Senate, something that has never occurred before. This is terrific news, since it will give us the opportunity to work for property tax elimination in both houses of the General Assembly.

The Pennsylvania Coalition of Taxpayer Associations (PCTA), our statewide umbrella group, has begun planning based on current information and I’ll share our plans in a future update after they’ve been firmed up a bit.

Property taxes look like a hot issue for this session and it appears that a number of competing bills may also be introduced. It’s a certainty that many of them will be more of the same fake "relief" like last session’s HB 1600 and we're going to have to be very discriminating when deciding what to support. Our only sure winner right now is the SPTEA.

In the meantime, we can get an early start with the new legislature.

The Democrats retained control of the House with a 104-99 majority, so they will control the flow of legislation this session. We can begin 2009 by respectfully requesting that the new House majority leadership team make school property tax elimination a priority.

In a recent commentary in the Wilkes-Barre Times-Leader, Luzerne County Representative Todd Eachus, the new majority leader, said: “The state House of Representatives is under new management and has new priorities, and the people of Pennsylvania will determine those priorities.”

We’ll assume that Representative Eachus is being sincere, so it’s important that everyone please write or call him and new House Speaker Keith McCall to let them know our foremost priority: The complete ELIMINATION of school property taxes! The contact information to make this request to these leaders is below.

For those of you in Northeast Pennsylvania, it’s especially important for you to make your voices heard since these two lawmakers are from your area and are sensitive to your demands. Because of the hard work of CAPTaxes, the PCTA taxpayer advocacy group in Luzerne County, combined with the large number of homeowners in the Northeast supporting elimination due to the recent botched Luzerne County reassessment, we have a unique opportunity for folks in your area to make a big difference.

Good people have suffered for far too long while some of our lawmakers waste time playing shallow, self-serving political games. It is time for those who have opposed elimination to disavow the special interests, reject the petty politics, and do what is right for the people of Pennsylvania. Nothing less than TOTAL ELIMINATION is acceptable and no excuses can be tolerated.

Speaker of the House

Hon. Keith R. McCall
162 West Ridge Street
Lansford, PA 18232
(570) 645-7585
Fax: (570) 645-9526
E-mail: kmccall@pahouse.net

Majority Floor Leader

Hon. Todd A. Eachus
100 West Broad St.
Suite #107
Hazleton, PA 18201
(570) 450-7905
Fax: (570) 459-3946
E-mail: teachus@pahouse.net

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Because of the current economic situation the property tax issue has become even more critical. Foreclosures and tax sales have greatly increased and more folks than ever are losing their homes.

On January 4th, the Sunday Reading Eagle contained a pull-out section listing properties in Berks County that will be sold at sheriff’s sale this month. The supplement was similar in appearance to a supermarket flyer; it had a full color graphic at the top, a picture of the sheriff and a sheriff’s badge, a few pictures of attractive homes, and four nine-column pages of homes that will be auctioned. How many of these homes could have been saved if school property taxes and the resulting monthly escrow payments were eliminated?

I was particularly outraged by this piece because it was presented in such a blatantly commercial manner even though each listing represents the devastation of a family’s life. Does this indicate how callous the government has become about seizing our homes and destroying our dreams?

We have gone well beyond the problem of exorbitant and unfair property taxes to a more basic violation of our Constitutional rights: The right to be secure in one’s property. The right to possess and use one’s own private property was recognized by the framers of our Constitution and in our founding government documents as one of the foremost of our inalienable, inviolable, rights.

John Adams declared: “Property must be secured or liberty cannot exist.” James Madison said: “Government is instituted to protect property… This being the end of government, that alone is a just government which impartially secures to every man whatever is his own.”

Despite the intent of our founding fathers to guarantee that we are to be secure in our property, our government can simply confiscate our homes at will to satisfy a subjective and inequitable tax. This must end! Property taxes must be eliminated NOW and the sacrosanct right to be secure in our property restored.

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Just one more note: Thanks to the efforts of all of you we have built tremendous momentum over the past few years but we need to continue to build if we are to reach our goal. Please ask your family, friends, neighbors - everyone you know – to join in this cause by visiting the PTCC website at www.ptcc.us to learn about the SPTEA and to subscribe to the PTCC e-mail updates. In a grassroots effort such as ours, every voice counts!

Please accept my sincere gratitude to all of you for your ongoing help and support – it is greatly appreciated. NOW LET’S WORK TOGETHER TO GET THIS DONE!

Please write to me at pataxpayers@gmail.com with questions or comments.

David Baldinger
PTCC Administrator

Next Steps

2008-10-28T17:27:00.013-04:00

28 October 2008

Dear Friends,

Many of you have written to me during the past few weeks asking for an update on school property tax elimination. Please accept my apology for not writing sooner but I was waiting for complete information before sending another update.

No further action was taken by the House of Representatives on any property tax measure during the final days of the 2007-2008 legislative session as the majority leadership continued to keep bills bottled up in committee. The Pennsylvania General Assembly has now adjourned for the year and no further votes will be conducted, barring any emergency measures, until the new General Assembly convenes in January. Any bills still in committee, including HB 1275, the School Property Tax Elimination Act, will become void and will have to be re-introduced during the new session.

During the two years of the 2007-2008 session, a mere two days was spent on property tax issues and, even then, NOTHING was accomplished.

In the meantime, the House leadership is bragging about their achievements: A new dog law, regulations for massage therapists, an updated construction code, and an elk license auction. While I’m sure that these laws are worthy, they pale in comparison to the urgency of keeping thousands of Pennsylvanians in their homes rather than having them evicted for non-payment of property taxes or struggling to survive while paying those taxes.

The 2007-2008 session was a poster child for misplaced priorities.

Before looking ahead to the new session in January, we must now turn our attention to the upcoming election. Next week we will have the opportunity to strengthen our position for school property tax elimination by rejecting those lawmakers who have opposed our wishes.

A Voter’s Guide that lists co-sponsors of HB 1275, voting records on the bill, and a chart of positions for all House candidates has been published on the PTCC website. You can access this from the PTCC home page at http://www.ptcc.us by clicking on the red “Voter’s Guide” box on the upper right of the page. Please consider the information carefully before you make your decision on how to vote.

For those of you who are straight-party voters, please consider splitting your ticket if the candidate from the other party is a supporter of school property tax elimination. It is urgent that we change the makeup of the Pennsylvania House of Representatives by electing those who are willing to work for us on this vital issue.

I want to thank all of you for the tremendous support you have shown during this session of the legislature and hope that you will continue this support when the new session convenes in January. We WILL keep fighting until this battle is won.

That’s all for now. Look for a post-election update in a few weeks.

Please feel free to write if you have questions or concerns: pataxpayers@gmail.com.

David Baldinger
PTCC Administrator

Update and ACTION ITEM

2008-09-12T19:20:00.003-04:00

12 September 2008

Dear Friends,

Welcome to September and I hope that all of you had a nice summer. This month the General Assembly returns to work after their summer recess and it is time for us to get busy again.

As you know, the School Property Tax Elimination Act, House Bill 1275, has been bottled up in the Appropriations committee by the House majority leadership since its introduction last November.

On July 3, Representative Sam Rohrer filed a Discharge Resolution signed by 26 of his colleagues to have the bill released from committee and onto the House floor for debate and an up-or-down vote. A Discharge Resolution is a procedural maneuver used to force a bill from committee when the committee has refused to act on the bill.

On Monday, September 15, Representative Rohrer will announce the Resolution on the floor of the House. After a waiting period of 48 hours the full House can vote on the resolution; a majority vote is necessary to release the bill from committee. This vote could come as early as Wednesday, September 17.

** ACTION ITEM **

Please contact your Representative by phone, e-mail, or letter as soon as possible to let him or her know that you expect them to vote in favor of the Discharge Resolution to allow HB 1275 to the House floor for debate. Further, be sure to firmly but respectfully let them know that your vote in November will be predicated solely on their approval of this resolution. You can find contact information for your Representative by clicking the “Find Your Legislators” link in the left column of the PTCC home page at http://www.ptcc.us.

There is NO GOOD REASON for any Representative to oppose this resolution. Voting for the resolution does not obligate them in any way to vote for HB 1275’s passage – it merely allows the bill to come to the House floor for an open and honest debate and a straight vote. The ONLY reasons for opposing this resolution would be orders from a Representative’s party leadership and pure partisan politics. For an issue as important as property tax elimination this is not a valid excuse.

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Also during the coming weeks there is a good possibility that HB 2199 will come to the House floor for a vote. This bill is the companion legislation to the School Property Tax Elimination Act that calls for a constitutional amendment to forever abolish property taxes as a method for funding public education. Since this is a constitutional amendment, it must be passed by two succeeding sessions of the General Assembly. Because of this, it is vitally important to our efforts that HB 2199 is passed before the end of this year.

Since HB 2199 is a very short and uncomplicated piece of legislation it is possible that it could be passed by both the House and Senate before the end of this legislative session. Your help will be needed again when this bill comes up for a vote, so stay tuned.

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I’m sure that you’ve seen my previous remarks about Representative David Levdansky of Allegheny/Washington Counties, the man who has most consistently and vocally opposed school property tax elimination.

In the last PTCC newsletter I described his new “plan” for property tax elimination that he is currently touting to his constituents. In his August 20 “Report to Seniors” newsletter he promotes the bill to “eliminate all school property taxes by the year 2010 and all school property taxes for senior citizens immediately.” Representative Levdansky knows that this bill has ZERO chance of passage during this session of the General Assembly, yet he uses it to solicit votes from the most vulnerable and desperate of Pennsylvania’s homeowners. It is unconscionable that he should raise false hope for these folks simply for blatant pandering.

Fortunately, Representative Levdansky has a November opponent in Ms. Monica Douglas of Elizabeth. I would urge anyone in or around Representative Levdansky’s district to do whatever they can to help Ms. Douglas with her campaign in the 39th district. Representative Levdansky’s defeat in November would be a HUGE step in the right direction for school property tax elimination.

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Finally, a note for PTCC subscribers in Northeast Pennsylvania. Luzerne County homeowners are fighting a recent inaccurate and disastrous property reassessment. A group of homeowners in that area have formed a tax advocacy group to oppose this reassessment and to work for the elimination of property taxes through HB 1275.

With one notable exception, ALL of the Representatives from Luzerne and Lackawanna counties have followed their leadership in opposition to HB 1275 and have offered nothing but lies and lame excuses to justify their vote.

The one exception, Representative Karen Boback of Luzerne County, will be hosting a town meeting and rally in support of school property tax elimination through HB 1275. Besides Representative Boback, speakers will include HB 1275’s prime sponsor, Representative Sam Rohrer, who will give a presentation on the bill, and me – I’ll be talking about HB 1275 from a taxpayer advocate’s perspective.

If you live in the Northeast, please plan to attend! The meeting will be held from 7 to 8:30 PM on Thursday, Sept. 18 at the Dallas Middle School, 2000 Conyngham Avenue. I hope to see you there.

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That’s all for now. Please continue your support of our grassroots effort for property tax elimination. Together, we WILL win!

Please feel free to contact me at pataxpayers@gmail.com with questions, comments, or concerns.

David Baldinger
PTCC Administrator

The Games Continue!

2008-08-05T15:33:00.001-04:00

05 August 2008

Dear Friends,

This is the first PTCC update in quite a while because there has not been much happening in Harrisburg since the budget was completed. I’ll try to bring you up to date on what has transpired since then.

HB 1275

The plan to attach the School Property Tax Elimination Act (HB 1275) language as an amendment to the education funding bill fell apart when the bill was the last to be debated as part of the budget. Whether this happened by chance or by the House leadership’s design, it was too late to debate 1275 and the amendment would almost certainly have failed.

Representative Sam Rohrer has now filed a discharge resolution to force HB 1275 out of the Appropriations Committee where it has been bottled up by the Democratic leadership since last year. This action will force the bill onto the floor for debate sometime during the September/October session but it’s doubtful that there will be enough time remaining before the election to take any substantive action on the bill.

HB 2199

However, it has been reported that Democratic Leader Bill DeWeese has promised Democratic Representative Tom Yewcic that HB 2199, his companion bill to HB 1275 that calls for a constitutional amendment to abolish property taxes, will be allowed to the floor for debate. This is an uncomplicated bill that could possibly be approved by both the House and Senate before the election and would be a substantial step toward elimination during the new 2009-2010 legislative session. We’ll have more plans for the promotion of HB 2199 as more information becomes available.

Perzel vs. Levdansky, AKA the Rs vs. the Ds

Another property tax bill may possibly come to the floor of the House for debate in September. This bill is our old friend HB 1600 and has quite a story that I’m sure will infuriate you. The circumstances surrounding HB 1600 demonstrate how little regard some members of the General Assembly have for the taxpayers of Pennsylvania.

Do you remember the original HB 1600 that was promoted by Democratic Representative David Levdansky? It called for a 0.5% increase in the sales tax and a 0.22% increase in the income tax for an approximate $400 property tax reduction and was the Democratic leadership’s preferred vehicle for property tax “relief”. The PTCC and PCTA opposed this bill because of the temporary relief it offered while imposing two new taxes.

The Levdansky version of 1600 was defeated in January 2008 by a gut-and-replace amendment that was written by Philadelphia Republican Representative John Perzel. This amendment completely removed Levdansky’s original language and replaced it with a proposal to eliminate property taxes for seniors over 65 earning less than $40,000 by using all available slot machine revenue. This is a very popular stance but the bill doesn’t work financially – the demand for relief will quickly increase as more baby boomers retire and property taxes increase and the slots revenue will not be able to keep pace. But that really doesn’t matter since the amendment accomplished its goal…

Ding! Ding! Round one winner: Republicans. This was a score in the “R” column because the Perzel amendment defeated the Democrats’ plan.

After the Levdansky version of 1600 went down in flames the Democratic leadership panicked and returned all property tax bills to the Finance Committee (which is chaired by Representative Levdansky) to resign them to a slow death.

Suddenly on July 3 after a discharge resolution was filed by Representative Perzel, HB 1600 popped out of the Finance Committee with a new two part amendment that would freeze property taxes in 2009 and would force the General Assembly to eliminate property taxes by 2010. The bill is now in the Appropriations Committee.

The Democrats know that this bill has ZERO chance of passage by both the House and Senate because there is insufficient time before the election and, besides, probably would have problems anyway because the politicians wouldn’t want to back themselves into a corner by obligating themselves to achieve elimination by 2010. Knowing that this bill will die on the floor, they’ve effectively defeated the Perzel Republican version of HB 1600.

Ding! Ding! Round two winner: Democrats. Besides defeating Perzel by advancing an amendment that is sure to kill the bill, this move also gives them the ability to brag about their efforts for elimination just in time for the election - and they did just that in a recent House Democratic Caucus newsletter.

The real insult is a quote from Rep. Levdansky in the August 2 edition of the Connellsville Daily Courier: "My bill provides the ultimate in property tax relief -- it eliminates the tax entirely -- freezing millage rates next year will halt any tax increases before school property taxes would be eliminated in 2010”. What unabashed garbage!

During the property tax debate in January, Representative Jim Cox pointedly asked Representative Levdansky at least three times if he supports total property tax elimination; Levdansky avoided the question all three times. Now he suddenly is the champion of elimination? Where was this idea six months ago? The upcoming election wouldn’t have anything to do with his amazing change of heart, would it? This is nothing more than pure pandering. Why not support HB 1275 if you’re so intent on elimination, Representative Levdansky, and get the job done NOW?

Are you angry yet? You should be! These cynical political games are the primary focus of the leadership and many of the members of our dysfunctional legislature. And while they scheme and play them they don’t care in the least about doing the job for which they were elected – protecting and serving the people of Pennsylvania. While one party tries to beat the other, the taxpayers of Pennsylvania pay the price and good people lose their homes to relentlessly escalating property taxes. The legislators of both parties who participate in these games are reprehensible and need to be removed from office in November wherever possible.

I’m sorry for the rant, but I believe that it’s important that you understand the challenge we’re facing in our fight to eliminate school property taxes and the need to eliminate the jobs of the lawmakers who manipulate the legislative process at the expense of our financial security.

That’s the current situation. Except for the possibility of passage for HB 2199, don’t expect anything of any value to happen before the election – we must now set our sights on the new legislative session in 2009. In the meantime, we’ll refocus our efforts to try to defeat in November those politicians who oppose true property tax reform through elimination. The PTCC and PCTA will be issuing a voters’ guide in a few weeks.

We WILL win this battle but we must be patient and persistent. Don’t become discouraged and don’t give up!

Building Momentum

On a brighter note, the school property tax bills that were mailed in early July have many folks very upset. Not only have many school districts substantially raised property taxes but the promised “relief” from gambling money was exceedingly paltry in most districts. In fact, in many of these districts the “relief” was completely negated by increased property taxes. These factors have caused much discontent and have helped to rally support for our efforts.

The PTCC subscriber list has increased by more than 400 in the past four weeks, PTCC website hits are up by more than 90%, and our statewide organization, the Pennsylvania Coalition of Taxpayer Associations (PCTA), has added two new taxpayer advocacy groups for a total of 29. Our momentum is building quickly and all of the new supporters will be a huge help!

The two new PCTA member groups are:

AVCANS (Allegheny Valley Citizens Against New School) from Allegheny County

AVCANS was organized to fight a non-responsive school board. The Allegheny Valley SD board insists on building an unnecessary new school over the objections of the taxpayers, adding $24 million in debt. As an example of the arrogance of this school board, here’s a quote from the AVCANS website:

“To show you how the board feels about increasing taxes, a comment made by Mr. Redman, Board President, says it all. When a citizen pointed out the fact that many senior citizens on fixed incomes are losing their homes because of increased taxes, Mr. Redman said, "good, maybe when they move out we can get people in there to pay taxes". Such an insensitive and callous statement shows no concern for the taxpayers of this district.”

Oxford Area Taxpayers Alliance from Chester County

This group has a huge challenge. This year the Oxford board raised their homeowners’ property taxes by 14% (the largest increase in Chester County) and has predicted a 12% increase for next year. To add insult to injury, immediately following the announcement of this year's increase the board gave the Oxford superintendent a $50,000 salary increase that was not a part of her contract. Due in no small part to OATA’s advocacy the superintendent’s raise was rescinded and she resigned last month!

The PCTA extends a hearty “WELCOME!” to AVCANS and OATA as a part of our statewide coalition. We’re sure that they will be a great asset to our property tax elimination efforts! The complete list of PCTA members is available under the “About the PCTA” tab on the PTCC home page at http://www.ptcc.us.

If you’d like to organize a group in your area and become a member of the PCTA, please contact any PCTA member group or write to me at pataxpayers@gmail.com. The PCTA members will be pleased to assist you in any way possible.

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That’s all for now. Look for another update in a few weeks as the legislature re-convenes in September and we get closer to the election.

If you have comments about today’s update, please add them to the PTCC blog – the link to the blog is available from the PTCC home page. Please don’t be hesitant to share your thoughts!

My thanks to all of you for your continuing support and for all of the effort that you’ve put forth in support of property tax elimination. It is greatly appreciated.

For the cause,

David Baldinger
PTCC Administrator

The Rally and Your Help!

2008-06-08T15:54:00.000-04:00

08 June 2008

Dear Friends,

The “Save Our Homes” rally was held on June 2 in the Capitol Rotunda in Harrisburg and was, by most accounts, a huge success. We had a great turnout of enthusiastic homeowners and lawmakers from both parties and our voices were heard loudly and clearly.

The media coverage was somewhat spotty and sometimes was tremendously inaccurate but we still had quite a bit of favorable coverage and a few good editorials.

A recap of the rally that includes photos, a complete video of the event, and media coverage has been posted on the PTCC website at http://mysite.verizon.net/drbsr/PTCCWeb/rally060208.htm. Please take a few minutes to check it out and, if you have the forty minutes to spare, please watch the video – it contains a lot of good messages.

The rally was a terrific starting point but we need intensive follow-up over the next few weeks to hammer the message home. Here are the details:

If the rally is insufficient to motivate the House Democratic Leadership to report HB 1275 out of the Appropriations Committee, Representative Sam Rohrer intends to again attach the bill’s language as an amendment to one of the budget bills that must be debated during June. I’ll be sending another update about this when details become available.

HB 1275 has undergone two major revisions from the version that was debated in January. The sales tax has been eliminated for five major retail professional services – legal, accounting, architecture, engineering, and computer – to blunt the intense lobbying, mostly from the Pennsylvania Bar Association, that helped to kill the bill in January. The revised version of HB 1275 also offers no property tax reduction for commercial properties but caps their taxes at current levels. This was another major hurdle that couldn’t be overcome in January.

The bottom line is that all of the major objections to the School Property Tax Elimination Act have been addressed and the politicians have NO MORE EXCUSES for not passing this bill.

I have just one short story to tell you. At the rally one lawmaker told me that I should tell all HB 1275 supporters to let their representative know that the sales tax has been removed from food and clothing. I was taken aback by this comment, as the provision for taxing food and clothing was eliminated from HB 1275 over a year ago. Nevertheless, he said that some of his colleagues told him in January that they would not vote for HB 1275 because it taxes food and clothing!

At first I was flabbergasted by this but my reaction quickly turned to outrage and tremendous anger. For whatever reason, these politicians voted against a bill that they didn’t even understand! If they are so blatantly ignorant of the provisions of a bill that is so urgently needed, if they are so lazy that they can’t take the time necessary to learn about such vital legislation, they do not deserve to be representing us.

The June vote on HB 1275 will be a litmus test for the November elections. Both the PTCC and the PCTA, along with several newspapers, are advocating the ouster of any lawmaker who votes against this bill. It is time to let the politicians know that we will stand for no more delays, no more political games, and no more excuses. They must be sternly warned that their jobs will be on the line in November if they again refuse the will of the people that they supposedly represent.

** ACTION ITEM **

The key to passage of HB 1275 is not only your own representative but the House leadership of both parties. It is the leadership who tells their members how to vote on an issue and all will follow these leaders like sheep except for the few courageous, independent lawmakers who deserve our thanks.

During the next week or so, please telephone, write, or e-mail your representative to let him or her know that you strongly support HB 1275, the School Property Tax Elimination Act, and that you expect them to vote for this bill when debate begins in June. You can locate your representative’s contact information from the “Find Your Legislators” link in the left column of any PTCC webpage.

In addition, please contact the House leaders listed below my signature to firmly tell them that you want HB 1275 enacted NOW. These leaders can make all the difference in the passage of this legislation and it is very important to tell them your feelings.

The June debate will offer us another opportunity to make HB 1275 a reality and your help is urgently needed. Please do all you can top spread the word to everyone you know and to tell the politicians that we want action NOW.

Thank you so much for your continuing support! Please feel free to write to me at any time with comments or questions.

David Baldinger
PTCC Administrator
www.ptcc.us

Republican Caucus Leader:
Hon. Samuel H. Smith
527 East Mahoning Street
Punxsutawney, PA 15767
(814) 938-4225
Fax: (814) 938-1950
ssmith@pahousegop.com

Democratic Caucus Leader:
Hon. H. William DeWeese
222 Elm Drive
Suite 101, P.O. Box 832
Waynesburg, PA 15370
(724) 627-8683
Fax: (724) 627-6043
wdeweese@pahouse.net

Democratic Caucus Whip:
Hon. Keith R. McCall
162 West Ridge Street
Lansford, PA 18232
(570) 645-7585
Fax: (570) 645-9526
kmccall@pahouse.net

Join the Tax Rally!

2008-05-20T15:17:00.001-04:00

20 May 2008

Property Tax Elimination Rally!

Dear Friends,

This is just a short note today to remind you about the school property tax elimination rally that will be held in the Capitol Rotunda in Harrisburg on Monday, June 2, from 11:00 AM – Noon. This is a tremendous opportunity for us to take our demands to the unwilling politicians in their own house and to meet and show our support for those lawmakers who understand this vital issue and are who are working for us.

This is shaping up to be a terrific event with a number of great speakers and a lot of taxpayer participation. To make the greatest impression on reluctant lawmakers we need as many folks as possible to attend to voice their support for HB 1275, the School Property Tax Elimination Act.

Please do all that you can to join in this event and please help to spread the word to others who will be willing to attend. The time for action is NOW!

For those of you who might need transportation to the rally there are a number of bus trips planned in east and central Pennsylvania that still have seats available. This is a convenient way to get to the capitol and to establish camaraderie with others who are working for true education finance reform. A list of available buses and contact names are listed below my signature; all are $20 or less depending on location and will be reserved on a first-come basis.

Please feel free to contact me with comments or questions at pataxpayers@gmail.com.

I hope to meet all of you on June 2!

David Baldinger
PTCC Administrator

Pottstown Area:

Bus will be leaving from the Wal-Mart in the Pottstown Center on Shoemaker Road at 8:30 AM. Contact Gene Endress of the PCTA’s Owen J. Roberts taxpayer group at gendre1@comcast.net.

Reading Area:

Bus will be leaving from the K-Mart at Rt. 222 and Rt. 724, Shillington, at 8:30 AM. Contact David Baldinger of the PTCC at taxrally@mail.com.

Lancaster County Area:

Bus for the Eastern Lancaster County/Western Chester County area will be leaving from the Christiana Fire House at 8:30 AM with a pickup stop in Lancaster city. Contact John McCartney of the PCTA’s CLASTA group at johnjhere30@comcast.net.

York County Area:

Bus will leave from the Southeastern York County area (Delta, Fawn Grove, Peach Bottom) with a pickup stop near York City. Contact Margie Lavin of the PCTA’s SETRC group at info@setrc.net or Warren Bulette of the PCTA’s YCTC group at bulette@juno.com.

Property Tax Rally!

2008-05-02T14:03:00.003-04:00

02 May 2008

Property Tax Rally!

Dear Friends,

PLEASE forward this site to as many folks as possible!

The time is NOW to vigorously show the Harrisburg politicians how we feel about school property tax elimination. More on that in a moment.

First, on May 1 the state issued its chart for gambling-funded property tax relief for each school district; it is available on the PTCC website here.

For many of Pennsylvania homeowners the amount of reduction in their property taxes through this measure will be less than this year’s school property tax increase. How did you fare with this “relief”?

Now for the real purpose of this post.

On Monday, June 2, 2008 from 11:00 AM to Noon in the Capitol Rotunda in Harrisburg there will be a school property tax elimination rally in support of House Bill 1275, the School Property Tax Elimination Act, the legislation that is endorsed by the PTCC and the 26 PCTA taxpayer groups statewide. The timing of this rally is meant to coincide with the budget debate that will be in progress then, ensuring that all members of the General Assembly will be in Harrisburg to receive our message.

While the agenda has not yet been finalized, it is expected that a large number of current lawmakers and candidates will be in attendance along with community, business, and school leaders and taxpayer advocates. Following the rally the PTCC and FreedomWorks will be issuing an “Honor Roll” listing all lawmakers, candidates, and community leaders who show their support for school property tax elimination by attending this rally.

The purpose of the rally is to do our best to send a very strong message to the legislature that we are tired of their procrastination and expect action to eliminate school property taxes NOW. This is a major event and a large turnout of supporters will help to focus media attention on this issue and increase public awareness and support.

Your help is needed to spread the word about the rally and, perhaps, to organize folks in your area and arrange transportation to Harrisburg. This is a one-time event that is VERY IMPORTANT, so if you're willing to help PLEASE try to find as many folks as possible to attend - use carpools, limo buses, full-sized buses, any way possible to get people to the rally.

Further details will be posted on the PTCC website during the next few days.

If you live in Berks County, the PTCC will be organizing a bus trip to the Capitol for Berks area residents. The approximate cost is $20 per person. If you’re interested in joining this trip for the rally, please send an e-mail by May 11 to taxrally@mail.com with your name, address, and telephone number. If enough folks respond by May 11 to fill a charter bus (or buses!), I’ll send you a return e-mail with the details of the trip and method of payment. I’m sorry that the PTCC can’t pay for this trip but since we don’t accept donations we have no way to fund it.

You are encouraged to add your comments about this letter by clicking on the "Comments" link below this post.

That’s all for now. Please do all that you can to publicize this event and please attend if at all possible!

Thanks to all of you for your continuing support.

David Baldinger
PTCC Administrator

Homeowners speak out about property taxes!

2008-04-20T11:26:00.002-04:00

20 April 2008

Dear Friends,

In late March, PTCC subscribers and others were asked to send us their real-life stories telling how relentlessly increasing school property taxes are affecting their quality of life. The response to this request was overwhelming; the letters starkly demonstrate the frustration, fear, hopelessness, and anger that are widespread throughout Pennsylvania over the lawmakers’ inaction in addressing the issue. These stories also demonstrate that halfway measures like HB 1600 will not get the job done - ONLY elimination will do.

The Harrisburg politicians who refuse to support elimination MUST be shown that their inaction is jeopardizing the welfare and the lives of many thousands of Pennsylvanians; they MUST understand that what they are doing (or not doing) is destroying the future for good, honest people who only want to live their lives without the fear of financial ruin.

If the lawmakers truly care about the homeowners of this state, they will consider carefully these letters that clearly show them the REAL faces of the property tax issue and how their political games are affecting the lives of REAL people!

You can read these stories in the compilation posted on the PTCC website at http://mysite.verizon.net/drbsr/PTCCWeb/stories.htm; they will be submitted to the Harrisburg politicians during the next few weeks.

To all of you who contributed to this compilation, please accept our heartfelt thanks for your efforts. If you have a story that you'd like to share, please send it to pataxpayers@gmail.com and we'll add it to the compilation.

One more note…

Many Harrisburg politicians continue to promote their despicable deception that they have brought homeowners property tax “relief” through gambling revenues.

As you are probably aware, state Budget Secretary Michael J. Masch announced earlier this week that gambling revenues will provide an average $169 property tax rebate in 2008. Mr. Masch also said that this would be a 10% reduction for homeowners and that this event marks the beginning of “historic” property tax relief in Pennsylvania.

On Thursday (4/17/08) the House Democratic Caucus, in an e-mail update, said this:

Homeowners to take home $600 million jackpot.

The House Democrats’ years of effort to provide all Pennsylvania homeowners substantial and sustainable property tax relief will begin paying off this summer. Pennsylvania’s budget secretary this week certified that the state’s slot machine facilities have now produced enough revenue to begin reducing property taxes – more than $600 million for homeowners statewide.

House Democrats led the charge and supplied the majority of votes to launch property tax relief for homeowners through slot machine gaming.

$169? 10%? Substantial and sustainable? Historic? GIVE ME A BREAK!

The statements above from Mr. Masch and the HDC simply emphasize what we already know – that the spineless politicians who do not support school property tax elimination have no respect for the taxpayers, think that we are stupid and ill-informed, and believe they can make us complacent by continually feeding us this propaganda.

Remember that $169 is an average. That means many of you will receive far less than this amount because of the distribution formula. The residents of many districts will receive as little as $80-$90, there are some that will receive about $50, and there is even one school district where the residents receive nothing. And I’ll bet that for most of you that rebate will come nowhere near 10% of your school property tax bill. Yep, that’s historic!

Remember, too, that a big chunk of the ballyhooed $600 million in “relief” comes from one-time casino licensing fees that will not be repeated in future years and that slots revenues have shrunken in recent months because of the failing economy. So much for “substantial and sustainable”!

Finally, if you’re expecting a rebate check, forget it. Your “relief” will come as a deduction on your July school property tax bill, just in time to be eaten away by increased property taxes.

All of this brings us to one conclusion: We must vote out of office all lawmakers of both parties who put the special interests and their own personal welfare ahead of those of their constituents by refusing to support school property tax elimination. The primary election is Tuesday; before deciding who to support, please see how your Representative voted when HB 1275 was debated in January 2008. The link to their voting record called “How They Voted” is on the PTCC home page in the “Latest News” column.

You are also encouraged to please voice your opinion about the taxpayers’ stories and the property tax “relief” announcement here on the PTCC blog.

The PTCC and PCTA thank you for your continuing support.

David Baldinger
PTCC Administrator
http://www.ptcc.us
pataxpayers@gmail.com

Action Item - The Real Faces of the Issue

2008-03-24T13:00:00.002-04:00

24 March 2008

Dear Friends,

I recently came across a quote from former Virginia Governor Mark Warner that truly describes the political situation in Harrisburg: “Politics is the only business where doing nothing other than making the other guy look bad is an acceptable outcome.”

Governor Warner’s statement accurately describes the reason why the school property tax elimination issue continues in limbo in Harrisburg: self-serving political gamesmanship that ignores the needs of the people in favor of political gain. But if you’re willing to participate, today’s Action Item can be a great help in moving the property tax issue past the games and into the forefront of the Harrisburg agenda.

There have been recent announcements from the Pennsylvania House of Representatives where lawmakers tout their agenda for healthcare reform, energy reform, and leasing the turnpike - all designed to grab headlines before the elections. But NOTHING is being said about property tax reform because NOTHING is being done about what is probably the most urgent issue facing Pennsylvanians today.

It’s my opinion that many lawmakers tend to view these issues in the abstract, seeing them simply as pawns to be played on the chessboard of Harrisburg election year politics rather than considering how these problems affect the lives of the people that they supposedly represent.

It’s time to show the lawmakers the REAL faces of the property tax issue to let them know how their political games affect the lives of REAL people!

** ACTION ITEM **

The PTCC and PCTA are collecting real-life stories of folks who are in distress from relentlessly increasing school property taxes. These stories will be compiled into one document to be presented to legislative leaders and the governor as examples of how their procrastination on this issue is destroying the lives of Pennsylvania homeowners – both working families and retirees.

During the next few days PLEASE send a paragraph or two to the PTCC that tells how out-of-control school property taxes are affecting your and your family’s quality of life. You may sign the letter if you choose or submit it anonymously, but please at least indicate your county of residence. If you have neighbors or friends who are experiencing financial difficulties because of the property tax problem, please have them send their stories as well. Send your letters to pataxpayers@gmail.com; the compilation as submitted to the lawmakers will be posted on the PTCC website when it’s completed.

Here’s just one example:

Last week I received a call from a 71 year old widow who was forced to raid her tax savings fund to pay for fuel oil and now has no way to pay her property taxes. She keeps her thermostat at 56 degrees, basically lives in one room with a space heater, and has gone back to work cleaning houses so she can afford to buy food. This woman lives in a very modest house in a school district where last year the district was granted an exception to the Act 1 index and raised property taxes by 8.6%; they were granted an exception again this year and will increase taxes 6.7%. That's more than 15% in two years. This woman is despondent from the fear of losing her home and having no place to live.

Stories like this one are UNACCEPTABLE! These politicians MUST be shown that their inaction is jeopardizing the welfare and the lives of many thousands of Pennsylvanians; they MUST understand that what they are doing (or not doing) is destroying the future for good, honest people who only want to live their lives without the fear of financial ruin. Significant pressures above any that have ever been seen are affecting folks and this effort will help to get the information necessary to quantify this issue.

Finally, if you want further proof of the terrible tax situation in Pennsylvania, please read this article from Kiplinger’s Magazine that outlines the best and worst states for total tax burden on retirees. Guess which state is rated the worst? http://moneycentral.msn.com/content/RetirementandWills/P45875.asp

You can help to end this deplorable situation by responding to today’s Action Item – please take a few minutes to do so and feel free to also post your comments on the PTCC Blog site.

The taxpayers of Pennsylvania can no longer be ignored!

In closing, I want to thank all of you for your continuing support of our efforts to achieve honest, equitable school finance reform. Please work to enlist the help of your family, friends, and neighbors in this campaign so we can have an even larger base of support for the benefit of all Pennsylvania taxpayers and schoolchildren. Please forward this e-mail to as many folks as possible! The more hands, the better!

Your questions and concerns are always welcome – please write to me at pataxpayers@gmail.com.

David Baldinger
PTCC Administrator
http://www.ptcc.us/

Petty Politics = NOWHERE!

2008-02-26T13:05:00.002-05:00

Dear Friends,

During the past week or so a substantial number of PTCC subscribers have written to me to ask where the school property tax elimination issue is headed.

In a word, NOWHERE.

Here's the status of every bill that's being considered - HB 1275, HB 1600 (2 versions), and HB 1489.

HB 1275, the bill supported by the PTCC and the PCTA, is still bottled up in the Appropriations Committee. Because Rep. Sam Rohrer couldn't get HB 1275 out of committee, he attached the language of HB 1275 as an amendment to HB 1600; unfortunately, it was defeated by political maneuvering and intense lobbyist pressure.

HB 1489, the 1/2% increase in the sales tax for an approximate $200 rebate has not yet been considered but indications are that it will probably be defeated if it is returned to the House floor.

The original version of HB 1600 opposed by the PTCC and PCTA and promoted by Rep. David Levdansky (D-Allegheny) that called for a 1/2% increase in the sales tax and a 0.22% increase in the income tax for an approximate $400 rebate, is DEAD. The language of this bill was totally replaced by an amendment from Rep. John Perzel (R-Philadelphia) that gives ALL casino proceeds to those over 65 who earn less than $40,000 annually.

When their pride and joy, the Levdansky version of HB 1600, went down in flames, the Democratic House leadership panicked, went into total meltdown and quickly returned all property tax bills to committee. Even though they were garbage, the Democrats were counting on HB 1600 or HB 1489 to meet their promises for property tax “relief”. With neither of their pet bills viable and no fallback position, the Democratic leadership is in complete confusion.

It is possible that the Democratic leadership might try to do something during budget negotiations in March or April but at this point we have no indication whatsoever of when they will resume debate on property taxes. My feeling is that they will have to do SOMETHING before the election in November or take a huge risk that they’ll be hammered for not giving any of the property tax “relief” that they’ve promised for so long.

Summary:
HB 1600 (Levdansky version): Dead
HB 1600 (Perzel version): Finance Committee
HB 1489: Finance Committee
HB 1275: Appropriations Committee

Since HB 1275, the School Property Tax Elimination Act, was never debated as a bill but only as an amendment, it could still be brought to the floor for debate. If the Democrats get desperate enough they might just be willing to try to cut a deal with Rep. Rohrer to get 1275 to the floor. They have nothing else to offer, they've been promising property tax relief for three years, and now they’re facing an election with nothing accomplished. We'll see what happens.

It is almost a certainty that the Perzel version of HB 1600 will never be reported out of committee. The Democrat leaders do not want this bill passed, period. On the other hand, the Republicans (particularly Republican floor leader Rep. Sam Smith and Rep. Perzel) apparently don’t want to deal with this issue at all and reportedly don’t really care if the bill is ever released because they would consider it a win over the Democrats if the bill never came out of committee. All of this maneuvering has absolutely nothing to do with property tax reform - it’s all about the politics and which party wins or loses.

And THAT’S the real issue we’re facing right now. These legislators are playing their self-serving political games with no consideration whatsoever for the taxpayers who continue to suffer under the burden of oppressive school property taxes. The debate on these bills was loaded with distortions, omissions and just plain lies meant to justify lawmakers’ positions while they attempted to deceive the voters for political gain.

There is only one answer to this problem: during this election year, ELIMINATE the jobs of all lawmakers who refuse to support school property tax elimination through HB 1275, regardless of political party, and ignore their petty, politically-motivated excuses! The PTCC will be actively working against any incumbent or challenger who refuses to support this measure, starting with the House floor leadership – Rep. Sam Smith (R-Jefferson) and Rep. Bill DeWeese (D-Greene). Both of these leaders have opposed true education finance reform; both have challengers during this election and are vulnerable.

Tony Phyrillas of the Pottstown Mercury holds hope for true reform through the elimination of obstructive leaders who control their caucus members’ votes. As Tony recently stated in his blog: “Voters will have an opportunity to knock off captains and colonels and even some generals in 2008. If you cut off the head of the snake, you can kill it.” Tony is right on the mark – we must work to eliminate offending lawmakers in each district while also concentrating on these leaders.

Here are three resources to help you find offending lawmakers and their challengers:

If you don’t know your Representative’s name or district, you can find the information by Zip+4 here.

Next, see how your Representative voted when HB 1275, the School Property Tax Elimination Act, was debated as an amendment. The voting record is here.

Finally, the complete list of those running for office in 2008, both incumbents and challengers, is here by district.

When making your decision on how to vote in the upcoming elections, please try to ignore your party affiliation – there are candidates of both parties who will support our goals and these are the people who deserve our vote. There are also legislators of both parties who are responsible for the gridlock on this issue and I regard with equal contempt all of those who oppose true reform, regardless of political party. I hope that you will, too.

Otherwise, there isn’t a lot to be done immediately except to keep this issue on the front burner with letters to the editor and calls to radio talk shows. An occasional letter to your legislator will continue to help but mass e-mails are of little value while nothing is happening in the House.

I’ll keep you updated when there’s any new information.

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PTCC Blog

Please feel free to add your comments on the current pathetic state of this issue at the bottom of this blog entry.

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New PTCC Website

The PTCC website has been totally redesigned to make navigation easier and to give the site a fresher, more contemporary look. If you haven’t visited the website recently, please check out the new site and give it a test drive. http://www.ptcc.us.

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New PCTA Member

The Pennsylvania Coalition of Taxpayer Associations has added its twenty-sixth member group! The latest group supporting our goals is the Ches-Lan Anti School Tax Payers Association (CLASTA), from eastern Chester/western Lancaster Counties. The leader and contact for this group is John McCartney, johnjhere30@comcast.net. Welcome, CLASTA!

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In closing, I want to thank all of you for your continuing support of our efforts to achieve honest, equitable school finance reform. Please work to enlist the help of your family, friends, and neighbors in this campaign so we can have an even larger base of support for the benefit of all Pennsylvania taxpayers and schoolchildren. Please forward this e-mail to as many folks as possible! The more hands, the better!

Your questions, comments, and concerns are always welcome – please write to me at pataxpayers@gmail.com.

David Baldinger
PTCC Administrator

UPDATE - The week in review and the zoo in Harrisburg

2008-02-02T09:59:00.001-05:00

02 February 2008

Dear Friends,

This week has been an absolute zoo in the state House of Representatives – and that analogy is insulting to the zoo animals!

Because the bill supported by the PTCC and PCTA, HB 1275, the School Property Tax Elimination Act (SPTEA), was not allowed out of the House Appropriations Committee for a fair hearing by the majority leadership, its language was attached as an amendment to HB 1600 to ensure it would be debated.

Unfortunately, the amendment was defeated on Tuesday (1/29) mostly because the legislators bent to the will of the special interests and marched in lockstep with their caucus leaders.

If you want to see how your representative voted on the HB 1275 amendment, the complete voting list is here.

The Democratic Leadership was closely involved in the crafting of 1275 and had been negotiating with the prime sponsor, Rep. Rohrer, since last January. The negotiations were done in good faith and total transparency by Rep. Rohrer; many compromises were made for the Democrats, including the elimination of the 3% sales tax on food and clothing and retaining 50% of the property tax on businesses, both large and small. (The original bill called for 100% reduction for all entities so a constitutional amendment to the uniformity clause could be avoided.)

In the end, the Democratic Leadership refused to endorse the bill, mainly because Rep. Rohrer refused to retain ALL property taxes on business. Doing this would have delayed enactment by at least two years because a constitutional amendment would have been required under those circumstances.

In a PTCC poll conducted in early January, 92% of the respondents answered "No" to the question "If school property taxes on your home are COMPLETELY ELIMINATED, do you object to the reduction of school property taxes for business by 50%?" This information was sent to the Democratic Leadership but was ignored.

The Democratic-sponsored and highly-promoted House Bills 1600 and 1489 were both tax shifts for minor relief that were opposed by our statewide coalition (PCTA) because they would have been tax INCREASES for many Pennsylvanians. In the end, these were the only measures that the Democratic leadership would support, reportedly at the urging of the governor.

Some of the excuses from those who opposed HB 1275 (and my response):

If property taxes are eliminated there will be a mass migration to Pennsylvania and our infrastructure will be overwhelmed. (Nonsense. There is NO evidence of any kind that this will occur.)

We shouldn’t have to pay tax on attorney’s fees. (The PA Bar Association lobbied hard against HB 1275. Draw your own conclusions.)

The four year phase-in of HB 1275 will take too long. (The four year phase-in was necessary because you can’t just replace $8 billion in property taxes at the drop of a hat. There would have been no money available to do this.)

NO reduction of property taxes for business, even at 50%. Wal-Mart! Exxon! Casinos! (See the sixth paragraph, above. Even though 80% of Pennsylvania businesses are small business, all the opponents could scream about was the large businesses receiving a 50% reduction. The reduction of business property taxes was a major theme and a sleazy emotional ploy for the democrats, even though analysis said that such a reduction would generate approximately 100,000 new jobs in Pennsylvania each year.)

The people of Pennsylvania will start a revolution because of the new taxes! (Ridiculous. Let’s see… If my school property taxes are totally eliminated I’m going to have to pay $300-$500 or less in other taxes. What’s infuriating about that?)

It taxes funerals! (And your point is? If the average funeral costs $10,000 there would be an additional $600 tax. But until the day you die you’d pay NO school property tax. I’ll take that trade, too. This was more baseless emotional pandering.)

In short, the opponents’ arguments were nothing but lame excuses for not having the courage to oppose the special interests and their caucus leaders to do what is right for Pennsylvania homeowners. They have betrayed their constituents and sold them out for their own self-interest. These lawmakers do not deserve our support and should have their jobs eliminated in this year’s elections so we can find representatives who will truly represent their constituents.

All PTCC supporters are strongly encouraged to show their disapproval of this week’s events with a call, e-mail, or letter to their representative if they voted against HB 1275 (and a “thank you” to those who supported the bill is a good idea, too). Let them know that their job is HISTORY at the end of this year because they ignored your request for property tax elimination, and ask as many people as you can to do the same! Contact information for your representative is here.

You’re going to hear a lot of whining and a lot of excuses from these Representatives but in the end there was NO legitimate reason for killing HB 1275. Their only reasons for voting against this bill were cowardice, pandering to the special interests, and groveling to their party leadership – none of which has anything to do with truly serving their constituents.

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Now for round two – adding insult to injury.

One of the bills that the PTCC and PCTA oppose, HB 1600, is DEAD. A gut-and-replace amendment by Rep. John Perzel (R-Philadelphia) that would take ALL gambling proceeds and give them to senior citizens earning less than $40,000 passed Tuesday night (1/29). It totally replaced the original language in HB 1600, effectively killing the bill.

If this bill gets through final passage in the House and is passed by the Senate and signed by the governor, and since this bill uses ALL of the available gambling proceeds, any property tax “relief” from gaming money that you’ve been expecting for two years will be eliminated if you do not meet the guidelines above. This is good news for low-income seniors who are having problems just staying in their homes and we think that this goes a long way towards helping the most vulnerable group in our society. However, the flip side is that the House has reneged on its promise of property tax relief for ALL homeowners that it made to the taxpayers of Pennsylvania two years ago with Act 1. This is ironic since they could have given elimination to ALL homeowners through HB 1275 but refused to do so.

This amendment was obviously pandering to the senior vote during an election year, but what really irritates me about the Perzel amendment is that it is more of the same "divide and conquer" strategy. I'm sure that these lawmakers feel that with the passage of this bill the seniors (the biggest voting bloc) will be satisfied and they won't have to deal with the issue any more. If this is true, we’ll just have to prove to them that this strategy won’t work.

And here’s the final insult: Reporter Kori Walter is reporting in today’s (2/2) Bucks County Courier Times that Rep. David Levdansky has pulled HB 1600 from consideration. Even though his original language for 1600 was eliminated and replaced by the Perzel amendment, as prime sponsor Rep. Levdansky still “owns” the bill and can make this maneuver. These lawmakers continue to play their political games at the expense of the taxpayers that they serve and this MUST END!

Apparently the housecleaning in the 2006 elections over the midnight pay raise wasn’t sufficient to convince the lawmakers that we are tired of their nonsense. We can, and must, teach them the same lesson this year. For me the property tax issue is the litmus test that will determine my vote in 2008 and many of the lawmakers failed. They MUST be shown the door in 2008!

By the way, if you want to see how much “relief” you will receive from the gambling revenue in your school district this year, click here and look under the $400 million column. Be sure to take your blood pressure medicine first!

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So here’s the status right now:

After the Perzel debacle on Tuesday night the House immediately adjourned without further property tax discussion. The lawmakers returned to session for an hour on Wednesday morning and then announced a recess until 1:30. They never returned in the afternoon and canceled Thursday’s scheduled session. Right now it is uncertain if property taxes will be discussed when the House meets again on Monday (2/4).

It is obvious that the majority Democratic House Leadership is in total confusion from having HB 1600 defeated and the Perzel amendment approved. This turn of events has thwarted their plans for their bogus property tax “relief” and they obviously need time to regroup.

HB 1600 is dead, the second fake tax swap plan, HB 1489, is on life support, and the Democratic Caucus has no fallback position. They promised property tax relief during the 2006 election, have been unable to deliver, and now are facing the voters again in 2008. They are in a VERY precarious position.

If they would choose to help themselves, HB 1275, the School Property Tax Elimination Act, is still in the Appropriations Committee and could be brought out for a vote if they would be willing to make a deal with 1275’s sponsors. I have no idea whatsoever if the Democratic Leadership would be willing to do this but it certainly could solve their problem.

This debate still has a long way to go and many more votes will have to be taken, so we’ll just have to wait to see how and when all of this plays out.

In the end, the taxpayers have again paid the price for the ridiculous political gamesmanship of this dysfunctional legislature. It is time that these politicians stop the “business as usual” and tend to the people they represent.

Just please remember that we are far from finished! There are many avenues still available to us to achieve our goal of total school property tax elimination and we WILL continue the fight. I hope that you will likewise continue your support.

David Baldinger
PTCC Administrator
pataxpayers@gmail.com
http://www.ptcc.us/

Web Exclusive Update - 30 January 2008

2008-01-30T11:18:00.000-05:00

WEB Exclusive – UPDATE!

30 January 2008

Because the bill supported by the PTCC and PCTA, HB 1275, the School Property Tax Elimination Act (SPTEA), was not allowed out of the House Appropriations Committee by the majority leadership for a fair hearing, it was attached as an amendment to HB 1600 to ensure it would be debated.

Unfortunately, the amendment was defeated on Tuesday (1/29) mostly because the legislators bent to the will of the special interests and marched in lockstep with their caucus leaders. We are currently assessing the situation and will issue a new PTCC update shortly.

If you want to see how your representative voted on the HB 1275 amendment, the complete voting list is here.

Some of the excuses from those who opposed HB 1275 (and my response):

- Rep. Mario Scavello (R-Monroe): If property taxes are eliminated there will be a mass migration to Pennsylvania and our infrastructure will be overwhelmed. (Nonsense. There is NO evidence of any kind that this will occur.)

- Rep. Bryan Cutler (R-Lancaster): We shouldn’t have to pay tax on attorney’s fees and argued against the four year phase-in. (The PA Bar Association lobbied hard against HB 1275 and Rep. Cutler is an attorney. Draw your own conclusions. The four year phase-in was necessary because you can’t just replace $8 billion in property taxes at the drop of a hat. There would have been no money available to do this.)

- Rep. Scott Boyd (R-Lancaster): People will be crossing the border to find an attorney so they can avoid the sales tax. (Impossible. Are Maryland or Delaware or New York or New Jersey lawyers licensed to practice PA law?)

- Rep. Michael Sturla (D-Lancaster) and a lot of others: NO reduction of property taxes for business, even at 50%. (In the recent PTCC survey where many of you voiced your opinion, 92% of you said you didn’t care if school property taxes were reduced by 50% for business if your property taxes were ELIMINATED. The reduction of business property taxes was a major theme for the democrats.)

- Rep. Jess Stairs (R-Fayette/Westmoreland): The people of Pennsylvania will start a revolution because of the new taxes! (Ridiculous. Let’s see… If my school property taxes are totally eliminated I’m going to have to pay $300-$500 in other taxes. What’s infuriating about that?)

David Levdansky (D-Allegheny/Washington): It taxes funerals! (And your point is? If the average funeral costs $10,000 there would be an additional $600 tax. But until the day you die you’d pay NO school property tax. I’ll take that trade, too.)

In short, the opponents’ arguments were nothing but lame excuses for not having the courage to oppose the special interests and to do what is right for Pennsylvania homeowners. They have betrayed their constituents and sold them out for their own self-interest. These lawmakers do not deserve our support and should have their jobs eliminated in this year’s elections so we can find representatives who will truly represent their constituents.

You are strongly encouraged to show your disapproval with a call, e-mail, or letter to your representative if they voted against HB 1275. Let them know that their job is HISTORY at the end of this year! Contact information for your representative is here: http://www.legis.state.pa.us/cfdocs/legis/home/find.cfm

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One other note: One of the bills that the PTCC and PCTA oppose, HB 1600, is DEAD. A gut-and-replace amendment by Rep. John Perzel (R-Philadelphia) that would take ALL gambling proceeds and give them to senior citizens earning less than $40,000 passed Tuesday night (1/29). It totally replaced the original language in HB 1600, effectively killing the bill.

If this bill get through final passage in the House and is passed by the senate and signed by the governor, and since this bill uses ALL of the gambling proceeds, any property tax “relief” from gaming money that you’ve been expecting for two years will be eliminated if you’re less than 65 years of age. This is good news for low-income seniors who are having problems just staying in their homes and we think that this goes a long way towards helping the most vulnerable group in our society. However, the flip side is that the House has reneged on its promise of property tax relief for ALL homeowners that it made to the taxpayers of Pennsylvania two years ago with Act 1. This is ironic since they could have given elimination to ALL homeowners through HB 1275 but refused to do so.

What really irritates me about the Perzel amendment is that it is more of the same "divide and conquer" strategy. I'm sure that these lawmakers feel that with the passage of this bill the seniors (the biggest voting bloc) will be satisfied and they won't have to deal with the issue any more. If this is true, we’ll just have to prove to them that this strategy won’t work.

If you want to see how much “relief” you will receive from the gambling revenue in your school district this year, click here and look under the $400 million column. Be sure to take your blood pressure medicine first!

This debate still has a long way to go and many more votes will have to be taken, so we’ll just have to wait to see how all of this plays out.

Just please remember that we are far from finished! There are many avenues still available to us to achieve our goal of total school property tax elimination and we WILL continue the fight. I hope that you will likewise continue your support.

Please feel free to post your comments and please write to me with any questions or concerns.

David Baldinger
PTCC Administrator
pataxpayers@gmail.com
http://www.ptcc.us/

Keep up the pressure!

2008-01-21T15:21:00.000-05:00

22 January 2008

Dear Friends,

The House majority leadership has graciously granted us another week to strengthen our position and apply more pressure on contrary lawmakers. More on this in a moment.

The only bill related to property taxes that was voted last week was HB 1947. This bill is a constitutional amendment that was backed by Rep. David Levdansky (D-Allegheny/Washington) and is companion legislation to Rep. Levdansky's valueless HB 1600. It will ALLOW up to a 100% homestead property tax exemption instead of the current 50%. The key word here is ALLOW, since the bill by itself does absolutely NOTHING - it needs further enabling legislation sometime in the future to have any effect. While the majority party spin on this bill is that it is historic, it is actually nothing more than a hollow election year ploy to garner votes – the politicians are attempting to deceive us yet again. The measure passed unanimously, 193-0, because it would have been difficult for any legislator to vote against it and risk looking like an obstructionist. The bill effectively says that "we may eventually consider the possibility that sometime in the future we might..."

While the vote was meaningless, the debate that it generated was really the important issue. Opposition lawmakers clearly made the point that the bill is worthless and pretty much had Rep. Levdansky on the defensive during the entire debate. Rep. Levdansky was asked three times for a straight yes or no answer on whether he would support total elimination of school property taxes if this constitutional change was made and all three times he avoided the question and refused to commit. Rep. Levdansky obviously does not want elimination and this was made clearly evident during the debate.

Although majority leader Rep. Bill DeWeese said that debate was postponed on HB 1600 and HB 1489 (the two bogus "relief" bills that we oppose) because there were so many amendments that the members needed time to study them, Tony Phyrillas of the Pottstown Mercury and other House insiders have reported that the real reason debate was postponed was because their supporters did not have sufficient votes to pass either bill. It appears that many of the members know that these bills will be regarded by the public as Act 1 revisited and do not want to be associated with another scam. It is a certainty that the majority leaders will be beating the bushes for votes for these bills this week.

Meanwhile, our efforts have gained strength because of your overwhelming response to the last Action Item, our PCTA members' work on publicizing HB 1275, the School Property Tax Elimination Act, and because of targeted advertisements that ran in more than 20 Pennsylvania newspapers on Tuesday and Wednesday (1/15-16). A sample of those advertisements is here: http://mysite.verizon.net/drbsr/PTCCWeb/1275_Punxsutawney_Spirit_Smith.pdf.

On January 9, the Pennsylvania Bar Association circulated a legislative alert statewide encouraging their membership to contact their legislators with the request that they oppose the School Property Tax Elimination Act. As an indicator of the success that your support has been making, the PBA issued on Friday (1/18) another bulletin that stated: "This delay has afforded taxpayer groups in support of Rohrer's legislation the opportunity to strengthen their voice and their legislative support for the proposal. Many House members who are committed to voting "no" on the Rohrer amendment are feeling this political pressure". The PBA didn't pull this information out thin air - they are likely receiving feedback from legislators who are running scared and telling them that their constituent's votes are more important than their support of the PBA's stance.

We've also heard that the newspaper ads and the huge number of e-mails and telephone calls were discussed in Harrisburg political circles last week. Apparently some of the House members were quite irritated; a staffer for one member reportedly said that this is "sleazy politics" (!?) and another reportedly said that it's "just not right" that the PCTA is doing this (!!??). Their arrogance is amazing! We are their employers and we have every right to demand that they address our grievances.

THE BOTTOM LINE IS THIS: We have been given another week to make our voices heard before property tax debate begins on January 28. We MUST use this time effectively to increase the pressure on these unresponsive lawmakers. The Action Items from last week’s update can still be very effective and I ask all of you to PLEASE respond to them again and again and yet again to keep the pressure on – more than one contact with your legislator will emphasize your conviction! Because of your efforts we have gained tremendous momentum – DON’T LET UP NOW!

** ACTION ITEMS **

** First, please immediately forward this e-mail to everyone you know and ask them to participate in this Action Item. We need as many voices as possible NOW.

** Second, call or e-mail your representative NOW to DEMAND that they support HB 1275, the School Property Tax Elimination Act, and that they REJECT HB 1600 and HB 1489. Tell them that your vote for them in 2008 will depend on their support of HB 1275, the School Property Tax Elimination Act, whether it is presented as a free-standing bill or as an amendment to another bill. Tell them that you are not interested in hearing any excuses that they may offer. Contact information for your representative is available here: http://www.legis.state.pa.us/cfdocs/legis/home/find.cfm.

We are engaged in a classic battle between the special interests and the citizens of Pennsylvania. The special interests may have the money to influence lawmakers by donating to their re-election campaigns, but WE HAVE THE POWER OF THE BALLOT BOX and can remove these politicians from office in 2008 if they refuse to do the right thing for the taxpayers of Pennsylvania. The message must be made perfectly clear: ELIMINATE SCHOOL PROPERTY TAXES NOW OR WE WILL ELIMINATE YOUR JOB IN 2008!

Please, everyone, keep piling on and try to get as many of your contacts as possible to do the same. Lean on your district’s representative and House majority leaders Bill DeWeese and Keith McCall and minority leader Sam Smith. Demand that they support House Bill 1275, the School Property Tax Elimination Act, and reject HB 1600 and HB 1489. Write letters to the editor, call radio talk shows. We have a good chance of success if we just don't get tired and give them the opportunity to ignore us again!

Let’s all work together to get this done!

Please feel free to write to me with any comments, suggestions, or concerns.

David Baldinger
PTCC Administrator
pataxpayers@gmail.com
http://www.ptcc.us

WE ARE BEING STONEWALLED AGAIN!

2008-01-13T10:43:00.000-05:00

14 January 2008

** VERY URGENT ACTION ITEMS **

Dear Friends,

If you want school property tax ELIMINATION and if you have not responded to a PTCC Action Item in the past, RIGHT NOW is the time to do so! This may be our only chance this session to have the School Property Tax Elimination Act passed by the Pennsylvania House of Representatives.

It is almost certain that several property tax bills will be reported out of the House Appropriations Committee on Monday (1/14):

HB 1600: This is the worthless Levdansky/Scavello bill that will raise the sales tax and state income tax to finance a rebate of approximately an average $414. If you don’t remember the details, the explanation is here: http://mysite.verizon.net/drbsr/PTCCWeb/HB1600.htm

HB 1489: This is the DeWeese bill that is also known as “HB 1600 Lite”. It does not raise the state income tax like HB 1600 but raises the sales tax by 0.5% to finance a small homestead rebate of approximately an average $205. Otherwise the provisions are identical to HB 1600. Reportedly, the governor told the democratic caucus last week that this is the only bill he wants to see approved by the House.

Both of these bills are dangerous pieces of legislation that work on the same principle as the Act 1 tax shift referendum that was so soundly rejected by the voters last May. They permanently raise taxes for a small, temporary rebate that will quickly be eaten away by relentlessly rising property taxes. They do nothing to control costs, address equity for underfunded schools or to solve the education finance crisis. They are WORTHLESS SCAMS that are meant to deceive us unto believing that the politicians have given us property tax “relief” and can be jammed down our throats without any chance for us to reject them. They are simply a PERMANENT TAX INCREASE and must be rejected.

HB 93: This one has slipped under the radar but will still be an issue. The bill provides for the implementation of special tax provisions FOR FIRST-CLASS CITIES ONLY that allow for the refund or forgiveness of property tax liability for certain low-income, disabled, or senior citizens. This is simply more pandering for votes and will take money from property tax relief for other areas of the state.

THE BILL WE SUPPORT, HB 1275, THE SCHOOL PROPERTY TAX ELIMINATION ACT, IS STONEWALLED AND IS NOT SCHEDULED TO BE REPORTED OUT OF COMMITTEE!

Floor debate and voting on the bills that are reported out of committee is possible as early as Wednesday (1/16), with final passage possible as early as Thursday (1/17). It appears now that property taxes will be debated and voted without any consideration of HB 1275. This is an absolute travesty that is fueled purely by the political motives of the House majority leadership. This cowardly maneuver will not allow a straight up or down vote on HB 1275 and will again deny true property tax reform to Pennsylvanians.

It is possible that the sponsors of HB 1275, the School Property Tax Elimination Act, could attach the HB 1275 language as an amendment to any of the worthless bills that will be debated. This will force the legislature to deal with this issue. We’ll know in a day or so if this happens.

** ACTION ITEMS **

** First, please immediately forward this e-mail to everyone you know and ask them to participate in this Action Item. We need as many voices as possible NOW.

** Second, call or e-mail your representative NOW to DEMAND that they support HB 1275, the School Property Tax Elimination Act, and that they REJECT HB 1600 and HB 1489. Tell them that your vote for them in 2008 will depend on their support of HB 1275, the School Property Tax Elimination Act, whether it is presented as a free-standing bill or as an amendment to another bill. Ignore any mealy-mouthed excuses that they may offer. Contact information for your representative is available here: http://www.legis.state.pa.us/cfdocs/legis/home/find.cfm.

You must take these actions before Tuesday, January 15!

My mood right now is exemplified by the famous line by Peter Finch in the movie Network: “I’m mad as hell and I’m not gonna take it anymore!”. All of you should be equally angry with this political smoke-and-mirrors game, too. The Harrisburg politicians have done NOTHING of substance this session and they are about to hand us NOTHING again.

Over ten thousand Pennsylvanians lose their homes to sheriff’s sales each year; many more are forced to sell their hard-earned homes because they can’t afford the burden of property taxes; schoolchildren in over 100 districts are receiving a marginal education because the residents can no longer adequately support the schools. Literally tens of thousands of Pennsylvania residents are suffering – truly suffering - because of oppressive property taxes, yet the Harrisburg politicians continue to shuffle our lives like pawns on a chessboard while they play their foul political games and pander to the special interests. They ignore our needs and wants; they are despicable and are anything but true representatives of the people. They must do what is right for the people of Pennsylvania or be voted out of office in 2008. They must be told NOW, in the strongest voice possible, that “WE are mad as hell and WE’RE not going to take it anymore!”.

This is the time that we have been working towards for the past two years. It is URGENT that we make a strong effort now to ensure that the competing bogus bills do not pass and that HB 1275, the School Property Tax Elimination Act, is enacted. PLEASE do all that you can during the next few days to involve as many folks as possible in this effort.

Your help now will make a difference in your life and the lives of all Pennsylvanians.

Please write to me with questions or concerns and please feel free to add your comments for everyone to read on the PTCC blog at http://pataxpayers.blogspot.com/2008/01/urgent-action-item.html.

David Baldinger
PTCC Administrator
pataxpayers@gmail.com
http://www.ptcc.us/

It's time to tell the politicians what we want! (And what will happen if they ignore us again)

2008-01-06T23:08:00.000-05:00

07 January 2008

Dear Friends,

Happy New Year to all!

Since the legislature has not been in session for a few weeks there’s not much definitive information about the progress of HB 1275, the School Property Tax Elimination Act. However, there are some indications that we may soon see some action on property taxes in the House of Representatives.

HB 1275 now has 44 co-sponsors. The updated list is in the November 10 update here. If your representative is on this list you may want to thank him or her for sponsoring this legislation. If not, you should contact your representative to find out why they are not working for your interests. More on that later.

HB 1275 is now in the House Appropriations Committee; we expect the bill to be reported out of committee in the near future. We also expect floor debate on property taxes to begin sometime after January 14 since this issue should probably be settled prior to the governor’s February budget address. Of course, considering the legislature’s record on timeliness these projections are subject to change. But nonetheless this may or may not be our last opportunity to affect House passage of HB 1275 and we must act anyway to let the politicians know we are watching them.

First, letters to the editor of your local newspaper in support of the School Property Tax Elimination Act are always a good way to help to spread the word and apply pressure to politicians, so write one if you feel comfortable doing so. Second, frequent letters, phone calls, and e-mails to representatives are a MUST from as many of you as possible. Details are below.

Representative David Argall (Berks, Schuylkill), the Republican Caucus whip, is the only House leader who has signed on to HB 1275 and is actively promoting the bill. Republican leader Sam Smith (Armstrong, Indiana, Jefferson), Democratic leader William DeWeese (Fayette, Greene, Washington), and Democratic whip Keith McCall (Carbon) have not indicated that they will support HB 1275. This is unfortunate since the leadership of each party can have a huge influence over their members’ votes. Although the motives for their reluctance can only be assumed, these leaders need a stern admonition from each of us to let them know that we expect them to ignore the petty politics, be TRUE representatives of the people, and do what is right for the taxpayers of Pennsylvania. Their contact information is at the bottom of this update.

It is also VERY important that you contact your district’s representative during the next week to let him or her know that you expect them to support HB 1275 and that your vote and the votes of your friends in 2008 will be determined by their support of this legislation. To this point we’ve been respectful with these politicians in requesting their support but many have totally ignored our wishes. With their re-election coming up this year it is now time to play hardball. As Tony Phyrillas of the Pottstown Mercury recently said in his blog, “It's time to hold your representatives accountable. Make sure they hear from you and the message should be loud and clear: Eliminate property taxes now or voters will eliminate your job in 2008”. Well said, Tony! You can find contact information for your representative by Zip+4 here.

Remember, too, when you contact your representative that House Bill 1600 is still being considered. This bill is no different than the soundly defeated Act 1 tax shift referendum and will permanently raise both the sales and income taxes to finance a small property tax rebate (approximately $414) that will be quickly negated by relentlessly rising property taxes. This fraudulent, worthless legislation is nothing more than a tax increase in disguise and MUST BE DEFEATED! Be sure that your representative knows that you expect him or her to REJECT HB 1600. Further details about HB 1600 are available here.

One final note on HB 1275, the School Property Tax Elimination Act. It’s easy to tell the good guys from the self-serving members of the House of Representatives by their support for this bill. Unlike Act 1 - the property tax “relief” measure that benefits everyone EXCEPT the taxpayer by funding racing purses, jockey pensions, the Philadelphia Convention Center, and the Pittsburgh Penguins Arena - the School Property Tax Elimination Act is pure in that it benefits NO ONE but the people and schoolchildren of Pennsylvania. There is NOTHING in HB 1275 that favors the politicians or the special interests. HB 1275 is a remarkably honest piece of legislation and those legislators who support it are truly working for your interests.

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HB 1275 Objections Survey

Objections to HB 1275, the School Property Tax Elimination Act, have been raised by politicians and certain groups in Pennsylvania. The PTCC would like your opinion about these objections so we can show public attitude to counter them effectively. Please take a few moments to complete a short three question YES/NO survey about the issues. The survey is here. Here are the questions that are included in the survey:

1) The Tax Foundation (http://www.taxfoundation.org/) has ranked Pennsylvania #47 for business property tax burden in its annual rating of business-friendly states. The School Property Tax Elimination Act (HB 1275) proposes to reduce business school property taxes by 50%; it is estimated that this will generate as many as 100,000 new jobs each year by attracting new business to Pennsylvania. Some House Democrats will not support HB 1275, calling this reduction “corporate welfare”.

Question: If school property taxes on your home are COMPLETELY ELIMINATED, do you object to the reduction of school property taxes for business by 50%?

2) The School Property Tax Elimination Act (HB 1275) is financed in part by expanding the current sales tax base to include more services such as architect’s fees, health club memberships, and lawyer’s fees. It has been reported that some lawyers are objecting to a sales tax on their services and are lobbying for the defeat of HB 1275.

Question: If school property taxes on your home are COMPLETELY ELIMINATED, do you object to the broadening of the sales tax base to include attorney’s fees?

3) Under the provisions of the School Property Tax Elimination Act (HB 1275), non-profit organizations will continue to be exempt from paying sales taxes on goods and services that they purchase. However, any goods or services sold by the organizations to consumers will be subject to sales tax in the same manner as commercial stores.

Question: If school property taxes on your home are COMPLETELY ELIMINATED, do you object to paying sales tax on goods sold by non-profit organizations?

Besides the YES/NO questions in the survey, it would be appreciated if you would add your comments about these issues to this PTCC blog post (below) for all to read or e-mail them to pataxpayers@gmail.com. Any personal information that you choose to submit will remain confidential but survey results and anonymous quotes may be sent to politicians by the PTCC to show support for HB 1275.

Please help. Your participation in this survey will be greatly appreciated.

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In closing, I want to thank all of you for your continuing support of our efforts to achieve honest, equitable school finance reform. Please work to enlist the help of your family, friends, and neighbors in this campaign so we can have an even larger base of support for the benefit of all Pennsylvania taxpayers and schoolchildren. Please forward this e-mail to as many folks as possible! The more hands, the better!

Your questions and concerns are always welcome – please write to me at pataxpayers@gmail.com.

David Baldinger
PTCC Administrator
http://www.ptcc.us/

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Republican Caucus Leader:
Hon. Samuel H. Smith
527 East Mahoning Street
Punxsutawney, PA 15767
(814) 938-4225
Fax: (814) 938-1950
ssmith@pahousegop.com
Armstrong, Indiana, Jefferson

Democratic Caucus Leader:
Hon. H. William DeWeese
222 Elm Drive
Suite 101, P.O. Box 832
Waynesburg, PA 15370
(724) 627-8683
Fax: (724) 627-6043
wdeweese@pahouse.net
Fayette, Greene, Washington

Democratic Caucus Whip:
Hon. Keith R. McCall
162 West Ridge Street
Lansford, PA 18232
(570) 645-7585
Fax: (570) 645-9526
kmccall@pahouse.net
Carbon

The SPTEA is Introduced!

2007-11-10T14:09:00.000-05:00

10 November 2007

Dear Friends,

Another hurdle cleared!

The School Property Tax Elimination Act of 2007 was formally introduced in the House of Representatives on Thursday and is now officially House Bill 1275.

We are now waiting for the bill to be assigned to committee before any further action on our part. We will be watching the bill’s progress closely and I’ll issue Action Items as necessary. Things have the potential to move quickly over the next few weeks, so please be prepared to help.

Below is a list of those Representatives who co-sponsored the introduction of the SPTEA. If your Representative’s name is not on the list, you may want to write or call him or her and ask why they haven’t supported HB 1275 and tell them that you expect them to support the bill in the future. Please be respectful and non-threatening but firm when you do so; we can ramp up the rhetoric later if they remain non-compliant.

You might also want to thank your Representative if his or her name is on the list.

You can find your Representative’s contact information here: http://www.legis.state.pa.us/cfdocs/legis/home/find.cfm.

Here are the co-sponsors:

Rohrer (R-Berks)
Cox (R-Berks)
Yewcic (D-Cambria/Somerset)
Argall (R-Berks/Schuylkill)
Quigley (R-Montgomery)
Denlinger (R-Lancaster)
Phillips (R-Northumberland/Snyder)
Stern (R-Blair)
Baker (R-Bradford/Tioga)
Barrar (R-Chester/Delaware)
Bastian (R-Bedford/Somerset)
Caltagirone (D-Berks)
Cappelli (R-Lycoming)
Creighton (R-Lancaster)
Everett (R-Lycoming)
Gabig (R-Cumberland)
Gibbons (D-Beaver/Butler/Lawrence)
Gillespie (R-York)
Goodman (D-Schuylkill)
Harris (R-Juniata/Mifflin/Snyder)
Hennessey (R-Chester)
Hershey (R-Chester)
Hess (R-Bedford/Fulton/Huntingdon)
Kauffman (R-Cumberland/Franklin)
Mackereth (R-York)
Mahoney (D-Fayette)
Mantz (R-Berks)
McIlhattan (R-Armstrong/Clarion)
McIlvaine-Smith (D-Chester)
Mensch (R-Montgomery)
Moul (R-Adams/Franklin)
Perry (R-Cumberland/York)
Pickett (R-Bradford/Sullivan/Susquehanna)
Pyle (R-Armstrong/Indiana)
Readshaw (D-Allegheny)
Roae (R-Crawford)
Rock (R-Franklin)
Santoni (D-Berks)
Saylor (R-York)
Schroder (R-Chester)
Steil (R-Bucks)
Swanger (R-Lebanon)

The ongoing help that all of you have given to our work for school property tax elimination and education finance reform is greatly appreciated. Chuck Warner of the PCTA’s Dallastown Group forwarded this quote to me and I think that it is appropriate to our situation:

“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.”
- Margaret Mead

This is so true. Thank you, SPTEA supporters!

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Press Conference Video

The video replay of the entire October 31 press conference where the SPTEA was announced is available on-line. It has a very good explanation of the SPTEA and includes formal comments from four PCTA members who support the plan. If you have 40 minutes to watch it’s absolutely worth the time. http://media1.pahousegop.com/video/asx_generator.asp?videoname=372398721.wmv

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PCN Call-in Program

On Monday, November 19 at 7:00 PM, Representative Sam Rohrer, the prime sponsor of the SPTEA, will be on the Pennsylvania Cable Network (PCN) Call-in Program to discuss property taxes. Appearing with him will be Representative David Levdansky, the prime sponsor of HB 1600, the fraudulent property tax “relief” plan that is actually a tax increase in disguise and is strenuously opposed by the PTCC and the PCTA.

This promises to be a very lively show. Please feel free to call the program to voice your support of HB 1275, the School Property Tax Elimination Act of 2007, and especially to let Representative Levdansky know that Pennsylvania homeowners will no longer tolerate more valueless, recycled approaches like HB 1600. HB 1600 needs to be defeated NOW!

Please mark your calendar and join the discussion.

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Tools to Use

An individual petition for the SPTEA is available for you to send to Representative Rohrer to show your support. Please print as many copies as you wish and give them to everyone you know to help to move the SPTEA forward.

Also available is a set of SPTEA promotional tools that was developed by Mike Fogarty of the PCTA’s Coatesville Group. The SPTEA Promo Pack is a downloadable collection of materials and ideas that you can use to help spread the word and increase support for the School Property Tax Elimination Act of 2007.

Both the petition and the Promo Pack are available on the PTCC home page at http://www.ptcc.us/.

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PTCC Blog Site

There’s just one more item today. Please visit the PTCC Blog site at http://pataxpayers.blogspot.com/. All of the recent PTCC updates have been posted there and you can add your comments or join a discussion about this issue. We’d sure like to have you participate and hear what you have to say!

That’s all for now. Please keep up the good work that all of you have been doing to support the SPTEA. We’ve seen many indications that we are really starting to make a difference, thanks to your efforts. Thank you all for your continuing help.

Please write if you have comments or concerns. pataxpayers@gmail.com

David Baldinger
PTCC Administrator

The SPTEA is Announced!

2007-10-31T21:07:00.000-04:00

31 October 2007

Dear Friends,

Our time has finally come!

On Wednesday, October 31, the authors of the bipartisan School Property Tax Elimination Act of 2007 (SPTEA) and House members from both parties announced the introduction of this legislation at a Harrisburg press conference. Members of the Pennsylvania Coalition of Taxpayer Associations (PCTA), including myself, spoke in support of the SPTEA at the conference. A bill number will be assigned when the legislation is formally introduced.

We’ve been waiting a very long time for this event. Even though the bill is truly bipartisan and was continually revised during good faith negotiations with the Democratic House leadership (who determine the flow of legislation), they nonetheless continued to delay for many months on a commitment to support the SPTEA.

The press release about the SPTEA announcement is here.

Now it is time to spring into action for all of us who support true education finance reform and school property tax elimination.

** ACTION ITEM **

Before a bill is formally introduced in the House, a memorandum is sent to all Representatives asking them to co-sponsor the bill. Your participation is vitally needed for this first step in the legislative process. THIS IS VERY IMPORTANT.

Please call or e-mail your Representative within the next day or so and tell him or her that you want them to co-sponsor the School Property Tax Elimination Act of 2007 as announced by Representative Sam Rohrer. Let them know that this is the only property tax legislation that is acceptable to you and that you expect them to do their part in promoting its passage.

Beyond this initial step, further efforts need to be focused on three fronts.

First, we must show unequivocal support for the School Property Tax Elimination Act of 2007. Please frequently contact your Representative and House leadership of both parties by mail, e-mail, and telephone to voice your support for the SPTEA and to demand its passage.

Second, tell your Representative that you strongly oppose the valueless House Bill 1600 and others like it. These worthless, politically-driven bills simply shift the funding from one pocket to another for temporary phantom “relief”. They add new taxes on top of the old while doing nothing to permanently solve the underlying problems like relentlessly increasing property taxes, lack of effective cost controls, and substandard educational opportunities for children in over 100 distressed Pennsylvania school districts.

HB 1600 is being avidly promoted by certain House members to satisfy their political agendas. This bill is especially insulting to Pennsylvania homeowners because it is no different in substance than the Act 1 referendum that was so universally rejected by the voters in the May 2007 election. Even though the voters forcefully demonstrated their opposition to Act 1 these legislators still think that they can get away with regurgitating this idea, jamming it down our throats and then assuming that we will be stupid enough to fall for their lies and false promises. They must be told in no uncertain terms that they will be held accountable if they impose this smoke-and-mirrors scam on Pennsylvania homeowners. HB 1600 is the biggest threat to true education finance reform currently in the legislature and it MUST BE DEFEATED!

Third, we must inform as many folks as possible about the SPTEA to rally support for this legislation. Please tell everyone you know about the plan, ask them to visit the PTCC website for details and to subscribe to the PTCC e-mail updates. Grassroots efforts like ours can only succeed with the support and efforts of ordinary folks who want to help make a difference.

Now that the SPTEA has been announced these PTCC updates will be become more frequent as we suggest ways that you can help to move this bill through the legislative process. We must hammer our legislators at every turn to keep them moving in the right direction.

We’ll be watching the legislature closely over the next few months and will be keeping a record of who supports the taxpayers through school property tax elimination and who ignores our wishes by pandering to the special interests. This record will be constantly updated and kept available to help taxpayers with their decisions for the 2008 elections.

We all must demand that this legislature stop deceiving taxpayers by placing ineffective Band-Aids like House Bill 1600 on this problem, set aside their business-as-usual partisan politics, forget the special interests, muster the courage and political will to do what is absolutely necessary, and give the people of Pennsylvania what they want and deserve: Enact the School Property Tax Elimination Act of 2007 NOW to totally eliminate school property taxes and fix a broken education finance system for the benefit and future of all taxpayers and children of Pennsylvania.

Links for information on the SPTEA and legislative contacts are below my signature.

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New PCTA Member

The Pennsylvania Coalition of Taxpayer Associations (PCTA) is again very pleased to welcome a new member group to the organization. FED UP (What a great name!) from Beaver County recently joined the PCTA; they will be another terrific addition to the PCTA and a huge help in furthering our goals in Western Pennsylvania. Please welcome them - it's great to have them on board!

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Thank you for all of your help and support. Let’s continue to work together to get this job done!

David Baldinger
PTCC Administrator
http://www.ptcc.us

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You can find the name of your Representative by Zip+4 here: http://www.legis.state.pa.us/cfdocs/legis/home/find.cfm

Details of the School Property Tax Elimination Act of 2007 are here: http://mysite.verizon.net/drbsr/PTCCWeb/solution.htm

Details of HB 1600 from a previous PTCC update are here: http://mysite.verizon.net/drbsr/PTCCWeb/arc082407.htm

House Majority Leader:

Hon. H. William DeWeese
222 Elm DriveSuite 101,
P.O. Box 832
Waynesburg, PA 15370
(724) 627-8683
Fax: (724) 627-6043
wdeweese@pahouse.net

House Majority Whip:

Hon. Keith R. McCall
162 West Ridge Street
Lansford, PA 18232
(570) 645-7585
Fax: (570) 645-9526
kmccall@pahouse.net

House Minority Leader:

Hon. Samuel Smith
423 Main Capitol Building
PO Box 202066
Harrisburg, PA 17120-2066
(717) 787-3845
Fax: (717) 787-6564
ssmith@pahousegop.com

House Minority Whip:

Hon. David Argall
428 Main Capitol Building
PO Box 202124
Harrisburg, PA 17120-2124
(717) 787-9024
Fax: (717) 783-8657
dargall@pahousegop.com

Defeat House Bill 1600 NOW!

2007-09-17T14:07:00.000-04:00

18 September 2007

Dear Friends,

The seven House Finance Committee dog-and-pony-show hearings on House Bill 1600 are finally completed and pretty much worked against the sponsors of this useless legislation. The lawmakers who are promoting this measure received mostly negative comments from both taxpayers and those who testified at the hearings, with many of the hearings turning raucous because of loud taxpayer discontent with this old, tired, valueless “solution” to the property tax crisis. On September 6 a Reading Eagle editorial hammered the Committee because they turned deaf ears to the taxpayers’ wishes: http://internetservices.readingeagle.com/blog/editorials/archives/2007/09/voices_of_the_v.html

If you’re unfamiliar with HB 1600, it’s another temporary property tax “relief” scheme similar to the Act 1 referendum that will permanently raise the state sales and income taxes to finance a small homestead rebate (average $414) that will quickly be eaten away by continually rising property taxes. Further, it does absolutely nothing to address the underlying problems with education finance; it is simply another fraud being perpetrated on Pennsylvania homeowners. More details about HB 1600 are available in the August 24 PTCC update available here: http://mysite.verizon.net/drbsr/PTCCWeb/arc082407.htm

In a related matter, the Associated Press reported over the weekend that property tax reform faces opposition from legislators who do not want to vote to raise other statewide taxes to pay for it and that they claim the defeat of the Act 1 referendum proves their point. These uninformed, misguided lawmakers fail to understand that taxpayers DO NOT OBJECT to raising other statewide taxes if school property taxes are COMPLETELY ELIMINATED. We object strenuously only to raising taxes for fake TEMPORARY “relief” such as HB 1600.

Now that the hearings have delivered the first blow to the sponsors of HB 1600, we need to hit them again – hard - to permanently knock this fraudulent measure out of contention.

Please call, write, or e-mail your district’s Representative to let them know that you do not want HB 1600 in any manner whatsoever and that you will hold them accountable if they support this bill. Further, let them know that you DO NOT CARE if a statewide tax such as the sales tax is raised as long as it ELIMINATES school property taxes. Debate on property tax reform will begin soon and we must get these messages to the legislators NOW!

If you do not know your Representative’s contact information it is available by Zip+4 at http://www.legis.state.pa.us/cfdocs/legis/home/find.cfm.

It is notable that two co-sponsors of HB 1600, Rep. Carl Mantz (Berks) and Rep. Stan Saylor (York) have withdrawn their co-sponsorship of this bill. We send our heartfelt thanks to them for the courage and integrity they exhibited by doing this. Please feel free to offer your thanks and encouragement to them.

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New PTCC Blog

There’s a new blog site for the PTCC! This blog is for anyone who cares to read it and EVERYONE is welcome to post comments. The blog information is identical to the PTCC updates and was started so concerned folks can have an outlet to post their own thoughts and suggestions. This is still a work in progress with a lot more information to be added (including links), so please don't be too critical. Feel free to add your own comments about property tax elimination, personal tax horror stories, anything that pertains to this subject! With enough comments it might make very interesting reading for lawmakers. http://pataxpayers.blogspot.com/

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New PCTA Member

The Pennsylvania Coalition of Taxpayer Associations (PCTA) is very pleased to welcome a new member group to the organization. The Oley Concerned Citizens group (Berks County) joined the PCTA last week; they will be a terrific addition to the PCTA and a huge help in furthering our goals. Please welcome them - it's great to have them on board! http://oleyconcernedcitizens.blogspot.com/

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Thank You!

Finally, many of you have been taking a great deal of initiative in helping to spread the word about the School Property Tax Elimination Act of 2007 by making posters, tear-offs, and other promotional materials, and by sending e-mails to friends and relatives. A large number of you have sent me copies of your letters to legislators and their sometimes mealy-mouthed replies. As I’ve said before, the more grassroots participation we have the better chance we have at achieving our goal of school property tax ELIMINATION, so keep on working at recruiting others to join our effort. Thank you very much for keeping me informed on your activities and for working so hard on this issue. It is truly appreciated and your efforts WILL help to make a difference.

Please write to me at pataxpayers@gmail.com if you have any questions or concerns.

NOW is the time to eliminate school property taxes and we WILL get this done!

David Baldinger
PTCC Administrator
http://www.ptcc.us

Action Item

2007-09-15T11:21:00.000-04:00

06 September 2007

Dear Friends,

The Pennsylvania General assembly will be re-convening on September 17 and we need to encourage the House leadership to begin action on the School Property Tax Elimination Act of 2007.

** ACTION ITEM **

As soon as possible, please call or write to Representative William DeWeese (House Majority Leader) and Representative Keith McCall (House Majority Whip) and urge them to issue a co-sponsorship letter for the bipartisan School Property Tax Elimination Act of 2007 (SPTEA) and to introduce the bill as quickly as possible. The letters should be respectful and non-threatening, and should voice your wholehearted support for the SPTEA and for those who help to have the bill enacted. Thank them for their efforts! Please do not use form letters, but instead write a personalized letter and – this is important - use business titles with your signature if applicable.

If you have first-hand knowledge of any of the recent HB 1600 hearings, please don’t be afraid to mention that you have seen the negative reactions to HB 1600 and that you do not support it in any manner. If you need more information about HB 1600 it is available here: http://mysite.verizon.net/drbsr/PTCCWeb/arc082407.htm

Contact information for these two Representatives is below. A letter from the Pennsylvania Coalition of Taxpayer Associations (PCTA) to these leaders is also copied below for your reference.

The PTCC and PCTA cannot express enough the urgency of this item, so please help if you can and encourage as many of your friends as possible to do so as well.

My thanks in advance for all of your help.

Please write to me at pataxpayers@gmail.com if you have any questions or concerns.

NOW is the time to eliminate school property taxes and we WILL get this done!

David Baldinger
PTCC Administrator

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Hon. H. William DeWeese
222 Elm Drive
Suite 101, P.O. Box 832
Waynesburg, PA 15370
(724) 627-8683
Fax: (724) 627-6043
wdeweese@pahouse.net

Hon. Keith R. McCall
162 West Ridge Street
Lansford, PA 18232
(570) 645-7585
Fax: (570) 645-9526
kmccall@pahouse.net

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04 September 2007

Dear Representatives DeWeese and McCall,

This morning on the Feedback show on WEEU, Reading, Representatives Thomas Caltagirone, Sam Rohrer, and David Kessler were guests to discuss property taxes.

Representatives Caltagirone and Rohrer both were adamant about school property tax elimination while Representative Kessler insisted that HB 1600 was preferable and another "first step". The result was as definitive as it was predictable: Without exaggeration, fully one hundred percent of the callers supported elimination while many disparaged both HB 1600 and Representative Kessler’s support of this measure.

The results of the House Finance Committee hearings on HB 1600 last week in Berks and Bucks Counties were similar. Both hearings had a large turnout of voters and witnesses who favor elimination, with very few, if any, supporters for HB 1600.

As a spokesperson for the twenty-one member groups of the Pennsylvania Coalition of Taxpayer Associations (PCTA), I am respectfully requesting on behalf of the PCTA that you issue a co-sponsorship memorandum for the bipartisan School Property Tax Elimination Act of 2007 as soon as possible so that the bill may be introduced in a timely fashion for the beginning of the September session of the House of Representatives.

The PCTA and our more than fifteen thousand members fully support the School Property Tax Elimination Act of 2007 and, further, will also fully support any House member who will help to advance this legislation.

In recent newspaper articles and in e-mail releases by the House Democratic Caucus you both, as leaders, have indicated your support for school property tax elimination. Please continue to maintain this support and to do all that is possible to aid the passage of this bill for the benefit of all Pennsylvania homeowners and schoolchildren.

The courtesy of a reply would be appreciated.

Very truly yours,

David Baldinger
Administrator, Pennsylvania Taxpayers Cyber Coalition
Member, Pennsylvania Coalition of Taxpayer Associations

More Useless Property Tax "Relief" Legislation

2007-09-15T11:15:00.000-04:00

24 August 2007

Dear Friends,

It has been a delightful summer and I hope that all of you have enjoyed your time in the warm weather.

There has not been too much that has been newsworthy about property taxes over the past months, although a lot has been happening behind the scenes. It’s time now to get back to work on this issue.

Some good news from the past month

In the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette on July 23, House majority whip Keith McCall said: “We are committed to making property tax reform the pre-eminent issue come this fall".

And an e-mail newsletter issued by the House Democratic Caucus on August 10 stated this about the fall agenda: “What can you look forward to? How about a revolutionary new bipartisan plan to eliminate school property taxes for homeowners?”

This is very good news. There is only one plan currently in the House that meets the above criteria of “bipartisan” and “elimination” – the School Property Tax Elimination Act of 2007, the former Plan For Pennsylvania’s Future, the school property tax measure supported by the PTCC. Now it will be up to us to ensure that these lawmakers will make good on their pronouncements.

Our chances for significant school finance reform are greater now than at any time in the past. We must be prepared over the next few months to do what is necessary to achieve our goal: school property tax ELIMINATION.

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PCTA Meeting

Representatives from the twenty-one member groups of the Pennsylvania Coalition of Taxpayer Associations (PCTA), the PTCC’s statewide umbrella organization, met on August 19 to develop plans and strategies to support the introduction of the School Property Tax Elimination Act of 2007 during the fall session of the legislature. It was a very spirited meeting and I’ll be sharing these strategies with you over the next few weeks.

During the meeting, the PCTA approved a resolution to the Pennsylvania General Assembly that demonstrates unequivocal support for the School Property Tax Elimination Act of 2007. You can read the resolution here: http://mysite.verizon.net/drbsr/PTCCWeb/resolutions.htm.

Following the meeting the PCTA issued a press release about the meeting and the PCTA’s scathing opposition to a new, useless property tax “relief” bill, HB 1600. The press release is available here: http://mysite.verizon.net/drbsr/PTCCWeb/pressreleases.htm.

One of the speakers at the meeting was a former lobbyist who spoke to the PCTA about grassroots campaigns. An interesting fact that he related was that it can take as few as ten letters from constituents to change a legislator’s vote on an issue. For those of you who ever had doubts about the effectiveness of contacting your legislator, this should change your opinion!

Again, I’ll be sending more information in future newsletters about the PCTA’s efforts and how you can help to support the School Property Tax Elimination Act of 2007.

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Problem Legislation - IMPORTANT

On July 17, Representative David Levdansky (D-39, Allegheny/Washington) introduced House Bill 1600, another valueless, fraudulent property tax “relief” measure.

Already being advertised as a “good first step” (how many times have we heard THAT?!), HB 1600 is exactly the same as the Act 1 referendum that was resoundingly thrashed at the polls in May. It imposes a 0.5% increase in the sales tax and a .22% increase in the state income tax in return for an approximate $525 homestead exemption. The legislators who support this bill are telling us that it will offer an average 40%-50% reduction in property taxes, but this is simply more smoke and mirrors to try to gain taxpayer acceptance and is patently misleading.

HB 1600 is based on EXACTLY the same principle as the Act 1 tax shift. It imposes new, permanent taxes in exchange for minimal temporary “relief” that will quickly be eaten up by relentlessly rising property taxes. HB 1600 will not only leave taxpayers with their same burdensome property tax bills plus additional new taxes, it also will do nothing to address the antiquated, crumbling education finance system, the cost of education, or equitable funding for public schools. It is another valueless band-aid approach that will again leave Pennsylvania homeowners without true, effective property tax reform. Further, unlike the Act 1 referendum where voters had a voice in rejecting the measure, this bill can be enacted and jammed down our throats with no input whatsoever from taxpayers.

I am astonished at the arrogance of these legislators who think that they can again regurgitate the same old plan that has failed three times in the past and still expect us to fall for their charade. Their utter disregard for the intelligence of Pennsylvania taxpayers is incomprehensible and they must be told unequivocally that we WILL NOT tolerate any more of their misguided halfway measures.

The biggest concern with HB 1600 is that if it is enacted the legislature will tell us that they have given us property tax relief and nothing more will be done for the foreseeable future. As much as they like to tell us that this is another “first step”, we know that if HB 1600 passes it will be the last step towards true education finance reform for a very long time.

We MUST fight this measure in any way possible.

First, I would ask all of you to please contact your Representative and ask him or her to support property tax ELIMINATION when the School Property Tax Elimination Act of 2007 is introduced. Further, request that they absolutely reject House Bill 1600 as another inadequate attempt at property tax relief. If you do not know your Representative’s contact information it is available by Zip+4 at http://www.legis.state.pa.us/cfdocs/legis/home/find.cfm.

Second, and more importantly, please attend one of the hearings that are being held for HB 1600 by the State House Finance Committee. A hearing will be held in Bucks County on August 27 and in Berks County on August 29; information is below. If you live in either of these counties or the counties surrounding them, PLEASE make an effort to attend one of these hearings to voice your displeasure with House Bill 1600. A huge attendance by concerned taxpayers can make a significant impression on these legislators.

MONDAY, AUGUST 27, 2007
1:00 PM FINANCE COMMITTEE Public hearing on HB 1600 - Property Tax
(Hosted by Rep. Chris King)
Falls Twp. Building
Community Room
188 Lincoln Highway
Fairless Hills, PA (Bucks County)

WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 29, 2007
10:00 AM FINANCE COMMITTEE Public hearing on HB 1600 - Property Tax
(Hosted by Rep. David Kessler)
Oley Fair Center
26 Jefferson Street
Oley, PA (Berks County)

Other hearings will be scheduled later in various parts of the state; I’ll pass along the information when it’s received.

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In closing, I want to thank all of you for your support of our efforts to achieve honest, equitable school finance reform. Please work to enlist the help of others in this campaign so we can have an even larger base of support for the benefit of all Pennsylvania taxpayers and schoolchildren. The more hands, the better!

Your questions and concerns are always welcome – please write to me at pataxpayers@gmail.com.

David Baldinger
PTCC Administrator
http://www.ptcc.us/