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Motion Expressing the Sense of Council of Allegheny County, urging the Pennsylvania General Assembly to move with all deliberate speed in permitting all counties within the Commonwealth to avail themselves of supplemental revenue streams that are currently available only to Philadelphia and Allegheny County.
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WHEREAS, Allegheny County has historically derived virtually all of the revenue used to fund its operations from taxes on real property; and
WHEREAS, in July of this year, the Pennsylvania General Assembly passed Act 44 of 2007, which gave the County the authority to alter its tax structure in order to provide additional revenues for the County's operations through the imposition of an alcoholic beverage and/or rental vehicle taxes; and
WHEREAS, similar revenue streams have been in place in Philadelphia for years; and
WHEREAS, allowing only two counties in Pennsylvania to utilize these alternative means of generating revenue places the remaining counties in the Commonwealth at a disadvantage insofar as it locks them into a tax structure that is almost entirely dependent upon property owners, a single segment of the population; and
WHEREAS, this inequality may also discourage the purchase of property in counties that rely solely on property tax revenues insofar as property owners bear a lower percentage of Philadelphia and Allegheny Counties' total tax burden due to the availability of other tax revenues; and
WHEREAS, it is the sense of Council that all counties would benefit from having the ability to enact similar taxes if they should need and choose to do so;
NOW, THEREFORE, IT IS MOVED that the Council hereby urges the Pennsylvania General Assembly to move with all deliberate speed in permitting all counties within the Commonwealth to avail themselves of supplemental revenue streams that are currently available only to Philadelphia and Allegheny County.