Cutting Business Taxes Is the Wrong Strategy for Philadelphia
Originally published at Pennsylvania Policy Center on June 4, 2025. June 3, 2025 By Marc Stier Sometime at the beginning of the next decade, the City of Philadelphia’s pension fund will be fully funded. As a result, the City will be able to stop making catch-up payments, which are roughly $400 million per year. The question then is: What should our city do with that money? Mayor Parker’s answer is to deeply cut part of the business income and receipts tax (BIRT) as the recent Tax Reform Commission (TRC) has recommended. But the members of the community advisory committee to the TRC and I have another idea that we think is better. We all know that, despite the great wealth in our city, the share of Philadelphia’s population that lives in poverty is the highest among large US cities. Yet the city does far too little to reduce poverty. Why… Continue reading