Pa. Lawmakers Look At Eliminating Some State Sales Tax Exemptions
HARRISBURG (CBS) -- Details of a budget deal remained fluid yesterday as legislative leaders and Governor Wolf try to end Pennsylvania's five month-old budget stalemate. And now it appears that eliminating some exemptions to the state sales tax is now in play as a possible way to raise new revenue.
For now, a plan to raise the sales tax rate has been put aside.
Instead, legislative leaders and the governor are looking at possibly extending the sales tax to some items currently not taxed.
Efforts to do that in the past became bogged down as various businesses fought to save their exemptions.
"Removing exemptions is not easy. I think people who are looking at this understand the difficulty," Drew Compton, top aide to the top state senator, told KYW Newsradio.
Sales tax exemptions for food and clothing would not be affected.
But sales tax exemptions could be eliminated for amusement parks and recreational businesses such as campgrounds and bowling alleys.
Already groups representing amusement parks have issued a statement protesting what they call a tax on families and tourism.