The latest Quinnipiac University poll shows that most Pennsylvania residents oppose a plan that would let counties issue their own 1 percent sales tax, and 69 percent think it’s a bad idea. Pennsylvania Governor Ed Rendell first proposed the idea last week as an appeasement to cash-strapped local governments.

Only two counties of the state’s 67 previously were given authority to create a 1 percent county sales tax in addition to the statewide 6 percent tax. The lucky two are Philadelphia and Allegheny counties, where the total local rate is 7 percent. Interestingly, the poll showed even residents in these two areas opposing counties adding their own sales taxes.

This poll has repercussions for the City of Philadelphia, which is trying to cut future spending by $200 million in the next fiscal year. One of the options that Mayor Nutter says is on the table is to raise the localsales tax rate. This couldn’t happen without legislative approval. If Philly were able to add another 1percent (New sales tax rate 8 percent in Philadelphia County) it could raise $128 million. That’s assuming everyone doesn’t just charter a bus to the State of Delaware where the sales tax is a big whopping zero.

The opposition shown in the poll for counties to issue their own sales tax is likely a disappointment for county leaders who have expressed their enthusiasm for the governor’s idea. Here’s what I found on the County Commissioners Association of Pennsylvania website.

We are pleased with the governor¹s call for legislative consideration of a county option sales tax, a long-time priority of the CCAP membership, with its recognition of the concurrent problems in local budgets. At this time there is no detail other than that it is a county-levied tax patterned after that described in our Blueprint for Tax Fairness. If a county were to levy the tax, 50 percent would remain with the county for its use and the remaining 50 percent would be for municipal purposes. A large part of that is likely to go to general municipal operations but other dedicated uses might be regional assets, shared services, councils of government, or tax exempt offsets.

Of course, just because a survey says people don’t like the idea of higher sales taxes doesn’t mean it won’t happen. You can bet the counties are lobbying hard in Harrisburg to win this taxing power. So, my question to you is do you think, given this downbeat economy, that counties should be
able to raise the sales tax by one percent?