City Council President Kenyatta Johnson moves to revive Tax Reform Commission

Philadelphia City Hall

PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) — City Council in the coming week will vote on a resolution to bring back the Tax Reform Commission, which released its last report more than 20 years ago.

Voters approved creating the Tax Reform Commission in 2002, and it did its work quickly. Within a year, it spent a half-million dollars producing eight key recommendations, none of which was fully realized.

They included eliminating the business privilege tax by 2014 and reducing the wage tax to 3.25% for residents and non-residents. A new tax assessment system would be simplified with safeguards against large, unexpected increases and a taxpayer’s advocate would represent property owners in assessment appeals.

All good ideas but still just ideas.

Still, Council President Kenyatta Johnson thinks it’s worth reviving.

“Are there any other alternative ways for us to raise funds to make sure we are growing our economy, but most importantly addressing poverty by producing jobs, recruiting businesses?” he said. “That’s the key way for us to erase the stigma of being the number one big city when it comes to reducing poverty.”

As the Commission’s last incarnation and efforts since then have shown, finding alternatives is only part of the equation. The political will to enact them is the hard part.

The quest for tax reform has continued without the commission. A proposal in the mid-teens, called the Levy-Sweeney Plan, would have raised real estate taxes on commercial property so the city could reduce wage and business taxes. That never happened. And the city created a tax reform working group in 2021 but it never issued a report.

“This is an opportunity for us to take a deeper dive and look at our tax structure and make sure our tax structure and system isn’t a barrier in recruiting businesses to come to the city of Philadelphia,” Johnson said. “And also, how do we use this as a mechanism to provide economic growth and development?”