ABC27 WHTM Harrisburg earned income tax proposal debated

Harrisburg earned income tax proposal debated

As people dig deeper into the state-appointed receiver's plan for Harrisburg's fiscal recovery, they're finding things they're unclear about.

Specifically, is there a commuter tax or isn't there?

The proposal clearly says a proposed increase in the Earned Income Tax is not a commuter tax, but one member of City Council isn't buying it.

Council member Brad Koplinski says even though David Unkovic's plan calls for a higher Earned Income Tax just on city residents, it will affect those who commute into the city for work.

"Currently, the city of Harrisburg has a one percent rate," Koplinski said. "If that goes up to 1.5 and your jurisdiction, your town, still has a one-percent, you will pay one-percent to the town that you live in and then a 0.5 percent to the City of Harrisburg. So it can go up and municipalities will be affected depending on the rate it might go up."

Unkovic flatly denies this and says Act 47 wouldn't allow him to do that.

"In the plan is an increase under Act 47 for the Earned Income Tax," he said. "That is not a commuter tax."

Koplinski doesn't believe that the higher tax will make anyone happy. He thinks the receiver should have pushed for a sales tax to spread the burden of paying off the city's debt.

"It concerned me that the sales tax was not pushed for and it seems as though that the burden is still really on the taxpayers of the City of Harrisburg," he said.

Earned Income Tax comes out of everyone's pay checks and is usually around one or two percent. Koplinski says for this tax increase to have any real impact on the city's debt, it needs to be raised much more than one percent, but he's not advocating for that either.