Mr Bill On Sales Tax

A Cautionary Tale

One of the vloggers I follow is a fella from McCook, Nebraska. As most people know by now Pennsylvania Governor Wolf is proposing to boost sales taxes to 6.6%. in addition expand sales taxes on items that weren't taxed previously. This coupled with changes to the state income tax.

The carrot at the end of the stick is a promise this will somehow help lower property taxes a bit (but not all of them).


Not So Fast
Let's take a look a what Mr. Bill has to say about how that's worked out for them in Nebraska

I looked up a few things regarding taxes in Nebraska and here's what I found. According to the information I found on nebraskalegislature.gov-- "The property tax is higher in Nebraska than most states." Doing a bit more research at revenue.nebraska.gov I found the state's sales tax in Nebraska currently stands at 5.5%. BUT, cities are allowed to impose additional sales taxes. This results in boosting them to a total ranging from 6.5% to 7% on average. One exception is David City where residents pay a total of 7.5% in sales taxes.

A Word Of Caution
No one's saying what happened in Nebraska will transpire here in Pennsylvania if we do this thing. But, it certainly should give us pause given what has transpired both there and here in Pennsylvania over the past few years.

Pennsylvanian homeowners were promised what they believed would be significant savings on their property taxes if casino gambling was approved. How's that working out for ya?

Thus my hesitance in believing things will turn out differently this time. I have little faith raising taxes will end up in our best interest over the long haul. Even if property owners are given hard numbers initially (which I doubt) doesn't guarantee in a few years we'd be better off for it.


I've nearly always found that promises to save me money usually doesn't end up that way. This is true of business solicitations and goes double for government's promises. When it comes to government promising us unicorns we usually end up with donkeys. Will this be the exception?