Nov 21, 2015 3 min read

If you know someone who clicks their heels joyfully at the thought of paying school property taxes, please identify them. They are as elusive a creature as the rare and endangered snow leopard or, heck, even Bigfoot.

And there is no question there is a need to reform the way properties are taxed across the commonwealth. Too often, elderly residents are hit with gargantuan bills for houses they have lived in for decades, and have long since paid off. Moreover, making property taxation the foundation of public-school financing frequently results in the quality of a student’s education being determined by their zip code: students in affluent districts have the best facilities, the most up-to-date classroom material and receive instruction from the cream of the teaching crop; students in less well-heeled districts often have to make due with inferior teaching, threadbare buildings and maps that still feature the Soviet Union and Rhodesia.

But a bill being considered in Pennsylvania’s Senate that would entirely eliminate school property taxes is not the way to achieve fairness for students or taxpayers.

Senate Bill 76, which was introduced by Sen. David Argall of Schuylkill County and could come up for a vote this week, would do away with school property taxes and replace those levies with an increase in the personal income tax rate from 3.07 percent to 4.34 perecnt. It would also raise the sales tax for certain types of clothing, shoes and food from 6 percent to 7 percent. This is a brazenly regressive tax that would hit low-income taxpayers the hardest, while giving a break to higher-income residents. What are the chances that someone getting by with three jobs is going to get a break on their rent after their landlord no longer has to pay school property taxes? We’re not placing big bets.

The proposal would also make certain services subject to a sales tax for the first time. Need to see a hair stylist? Or an accountant? Those services would now be subject to the sales tax, as would newspapers and advertising.

The latter two are, obviously, issues of importance to us. We definitely have a dog in this fight. But it should also be important to everyone who reads a newspaper, avails themselves of the services of an advertiser or simply values the free flow of information in a democratic society.

At its heart, a sales tax on a newspaper is not merely a tax on a product, but a tax on ideas, news and free speech. Retailers would suffer in the bargain because their advertising would reach fewer potential customers because there would be an inevitable loss in newspaper circulation as a result of the sales tax, whether those sales come through daily subscriptions or from a box on the street. If the advertising purchased by retailers is taxed, it would cause their businesses – and, by extension, the larger economy – to suffer.

Even if the proposal makes it out of the Senate, it would still have to survive in the House, where a similar proposal came a cropper in 2013, and then make it past Gov. Tom Wolf. But rather than waste any more time on this measure, members of the state Senate should focus their efforts on crafting property tax reform legislation that ensures our public schools are fully and fairly funded while also making certain that the burden is being shouldered equitably.