Plan aims to drop state sales tax, eliminate school property taxes
Wednesday, June 23, 2004
By Tom Barnes, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
HARRISBURG -- A coalition of conservative lawmakers is proposing an ambitious tax shifting plan that it claims would allow the state to do away with the 6 percent sales tax and eliminate school property taxes statewide.
The group of Republican legislators, called the Commonwealth Caucus, yesterday called for replacing those levies with a new business receipts tax.
The caucus chairman, state Rep. Samuel Rohrer, R-Berks, called the plan "Pennsylvania's 4.5 percent solution."
It would place a 4.5 percent tax on the annual gross revenues of every business in the state -- those producing goods as well as those providing services.
http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/04175/336270.stm