Our Opinion: Wilkes-Barre entering new phase of its renewal

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Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins’ Will O’Neill ready for his first NHL call

There is a lot of interest throughout the commonwealth in eliminating school property taxes. The major piece of legislation seems to be Act 76. I don&#8217;t think this act is the solution.I think most people have lost sight of the main reason for the elimination of the school real estate tax. As I see it, the main reason was to keep Pennsylvania residents from losing their homes due to their inability to pay school property taxes.With this specific point in mind a solution may be to eliminate school property taxes only on those residential properties that qualify for the Homestead Act. In other words, eliminate the tax only on your primary residence.Act 76 and other proposals do eliminate the school property tax, but they also transfer a tremendous additional burden on the individual taxpayer. This burden is the property taxes that are now being paid by commercial and rental properties. The payment of millions of dollars of property taxes now paid by commercial and rental properties would then be transferred to individuals, by the additional income and sales taxes levied on them.Commercial property owners do benefit from the payment of their property taxes. They benefit from the education of the employees that they hire. Rental properties are for profit, and the owners do not have the danger of losing their primary residence for non-payment of taxes. Also, many rental properties are owned by out-of-state entities and individuals.To summarize, I believe a good solution is to only eliminate the school property taxes on the primary residences of Pennsylvanians with an expansion of the Homestead Act. By keeping the elimination at this level, designating any increase of either the individual income tax and/or the sales tax to tax elimination of your primary home, any increase would be greatly reduced and perhaps lead to a better budget proposal.Ron FilippiniPlains Township

Letter to the Editor: Don’t fully eliminate Pennsylvania’s school property taxes