Philly biz tax changes dead, but Green looking for alternatives

A plan to make it easier for small businesses to survive in Philadelphia has been put on hold. 

Councilman Bill Green says the goal of his bill was to make it easier for small businesses to start up, or for those who are in the city to survive.   The plan to swap a business profit tax for a tax on business sales is dead for now, as Mayor Nutter marshalled opposition.  But Green says there are other ways to help businesses in the city.

“We agree that we want to end the disincentive of being in Philadelphia and that means instead of the shift that we proposed and it’s not clear how we would pay for that shift, the only way we paid for the elimination of the net income tax is to increase gross receipts so we have to figure out how we would implement that and how to pay for it,” said Green.

Instead, Green is looking at whether the city could exempt the first $100,000  in sales from city taxes.