Governor Wolf’s proposed budget spends a record $33.8 billion and represents a 16 percent increase in spending over last year. To support such massive spending increases, the Governor proposes a 40 percent Sales Tax increase by raising the rate and removing exemptions that currently exist on a number of goods and services. Governor Wolf also proposes a 21 percent increase to the state’s Personal Income Tax. Over the course of a full fiscal year, these new taxes are expected to raise an additional $8 billion from Pennsylvania taxpayers.

Governor Wolf has presented a flawed plan because his plan raises $8 billion in new taxes when fully implemented but only redistributes $3.6 billion* of the new taxes to local property owners and renters.

Unfortunately, the Governor has been traveling the state touting the money that will be redistributed to taxpayers in each school district without talking about the amount of new Sales and Personal Income Taxes that will be paid by taxpayers in the 500 school districts in Pennsylvania.

This analysis shows how much in new taxes the taxpayers of each school district will pay under Governor Wolf’s massive tax increases and then shows how much property tax and rent relief funds go back to the school district’s taxpayers under the Governor’s property tax shift plan.

The Big Picture:

• Taxpayers in 404 school districts pay more in Sales and Personal Income Taxes than they receive in property tax funds.
• Taxpayers in 96 school districts will receive more in property tax funds than they pay in increased taxes
• Wolf’s plan, when fully implemented, raises taxes by $8 billion and only returns $3.6 billion back to taxpayers for property tax and rent relief.

*Amount does not include $616 million of property tax relief fund currently distributed from gaming revenues.

Analysis does not include increased taxes to be paid by higher cigarette taxes or new Tobacco Products Tax.
-Analysis uses income data published by Pennsylvania Department of Education and the U.S. Census Bureau American Community Survey.
- IRS sales tax estimator for Pennsylvania was used to estimate sales tax figures.