By Marc Stier, Director, PA Budget & Policy Center
Yesterday the Senate passed an even worse measure reducing the Corporate Net Income Tax Rate than HB 1960 which was passed by the House in April. At a time when Republican legislators keep insisting that there are no fund available to reduce our great inequities in education or to make higher education affordable to our young people or to help Pennsylvania families or small businesses deal with the aftereffects of the pandemic, they decided we have the funds to spend almost a billion dollars a year on corporate tax cuts, an amount that will grow over time.
As we have said in the past, there is some justification for reducing corporate tax rates for Pennsylvania based corporations. But there is no justification for moving legislation to do that today without, at the same time, closing the Delaware loophole that allows 73% of the corporations that operate in the state—including extremely wealthy, multi-national corporations—to escape paying any taxes at all.
And there is certainly no justification for helping any corporations when we cannot help the working men and women of Pennsylvania, the students of Pennsylvania, or Pennsylvanians who need housing or health care.
