Siegel said there will be no county-level wealth tax, an idea that was floated earlier in the year by county Controller Mark Pinsley as an alternative to a property tax.<\/a> The proposed intangible personal property tax would have raised $25 million for the county, Pinsley said, but was derided by many as detrimental to small businesses.<\/p>\nSiegel commended Pinsley for his report that led to the wealth tax recommendation, saying it highlighted deficits in the budget, but noted that enforcing it would be difficult under current laws.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat we have determined is that the administrative burdens of the wealth tax would far outweigh its benefits. It would be far too difficult and cumbersome to the county to administer and collect,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Siegel proposed about $1.5 million in spending on three new initiatives \u2014 $500,000 in annual contributions to the stabilization fund, $500,000 per year for a Data Center and Open Space Defense Fund, and $500,000 for a Clean Elections Anti-Corruption Fund. He noted that the programs would be paid for with less than 0.25% of the budget, or $8.50 per taxpayer.<\/p>\n
The elections fund, which would use county money to match small campaign contributions, would be the first program of its kind in Pennsylvania. New York City has a similar program.<\/p>\n
Following a series of public hearings, the first of which is scheduled for Wednesday, the county commissioners will vote next month on the proposed budget.<\/p>\n
Commissioners chair Geoff Brace said he was glad that Siegel was proposing to bolster the county\u2019s stabilization fund.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a place where we need to focus to improve the county\u2019s finances for years to come,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Brace said he\u2019d be paying close attention to some of the new funding Siegel proposed, including requests for cash to fund open space preservation, elections and Main Street initiatives.<\/p>\n
\u201cThese are new proposals with significant cost, and they require careful attention. Support for these large-ticket items should require concrete plans which demonstrate strong return on investment for taxpayers,\u201d Brace said.<\/p>\n
County Commissioner Ron Beitler said he would also look at the proposal carefully.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe do have to address the structural deficit and fully fund core and mandated services, including rising costs to provide our programs residents depend on, especially those serving our most vulnerable. I\u2019m completely committed to doing that,\u201d he said. \u201cMy concern is that this budget goes well beyond those obligations. It increases overall spending and adds new discretionary programs. There\u2019s a big difference between funding what the county government has an obligation to do and inflating a tax increase to expand the scope of county government. That\u2019s the distinction I\u2019ll be focused on as we sift through this monster of a budget.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Lehigh County property owners could see a 17% increase in taxes next year under the county\u2019s proposed 2027…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":276993,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[119,121,120,2376,182,139,432],"class_list":["post-276992","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-allentown","tag-allentown","tag-allentown-headlines","tag-allentown-news","tag-breaking-news","tag-local-news","tag-news","tag-top-stories-tmc"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/276992","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=276992"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/276992\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/276993"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=276992"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=276992"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=276992"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}