Pittsburgh To Tax Students 344
societyofrobots writes "Pittsburgh Mayor Luke Ravenstahl has proposed taxing college and professional students for the privilege of receiving an education in the city. The proposed tax will charge students in the city at a rate of 1% of their yearly tuition — which, at Carnegie Mellon, would mean roughly a $400 tax (PDF) on most students. As the tax proposal hit local media outlets this week, the mayor repeatedly emphasized the burden that college students have placed on city services, and the need for students to pay their 'fair share.'"
Re:Wrong! (Score:4, Interesting)
After thinking about it, I bet the Mayor doesn't care about the truth. He simply wants more money, and if he can sell the average, not-so-bright Pittsburgh voter on the idea that students are "getting a free ride", then he can start vacuuming wallets and making himself... er, his budget wealthier.
Students need to do a economic demonstration (Score:5, Interesting)
1. Get $2 bills and dollar coins and use them for all their purchases for two weeks.
2. Then spend a week or two not spending a dime - ideally until they've saved the $400 tax.
3. Publicize it. Write articles in the student paper and letters to the editor.
4. Sit back and watch the results. Lather, rinse and repeat.
5. Profit?
Seriously, students need to show their economic impact on the local community. Using money not normally used will help make that point.
Re:If anyone else but the government collected tax (Score:3, Interesting)
Tell that to my HOA.
Re:I'm no master politician but... (Score:5, Interesting)
Easy. Just pander to the people who a) don't drink, or b) pretend that they don't. "Sin taxes" are becoming increasingly popular among the holier-than-thou voting crowd who look at it as a way to get everyone else to pay a tax increase while they get off free because "it's bad for you! You deserve it!"
"First they came for the smokers, and I said nothing because I was not a smoker. Then they came for the McNuggets and suddenly I cared because ZOMG MY FREEDOM!"
Who else can we tax? (Score:1, Interesting)
I have always lived under the assumption that our young people need to be
able study and when they are finished they start earning their share in society (so then they start paying taxes).
So, if that is not true, then i think we should re-institute child-labor so children can pay taxes too!
A 4 year old can make great sweaters!
Re:Politicians always come up with a bullshit reas (Score:3, Interesting)
>>>We are going to tax you because.. "blah blah blah blah". No one believes them because they will then turn around and "waste" money the next time.
+1. Here is your typical Pittsburgh (or Philadelphia) politician in action: Timestamp 1:00 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yS4rRl5B7NI [youtube.com]
Re:"Fair share"? (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Student effect on economy (Score:5, Interesting)
The city is just acting stupidly by threatening to tax the students and tuition fees. It should simply reduce police and fire services to the univ neighbourhoods and ask the univs to hire private security for protection and refuse to maintain things like synchronized traffic lights and traffic by pass and other such things.
They do. Both CMU and Pitt have private police forces. And you don't think that things like Pitt games bring venue to the city? The city seems to think so.
Also it should charge market rates for their sewer connections, water supplies and use of public spaces for utilities. The univs will come back begging to give up their tax exempt status and agree to pay real estate taxes like all other residents and businesses are paying. In fact if their tax exempt status is revoked, almost all the businesses and private property owners will see a big reduction in their tax bills.
I would hope you think we should also charge churches real estate taxes. I feel pretty confident all the churches take up more real estate than the universities. I wonder what the public reaction to that would be?
Blame the greedy CMU that charges 48000$ a year from their students,
Greedy? CMU has a *tiny* endowment compared to their status (only 10% of their operating budget). None of student tuition goes to the endowment, its all used to operate the university. And, of course, many students seem very happy to pay it. I wish that universities didn't have to charge that much, but I think it's unfair to call CMU greedy.
refuses to bear its fair share of the cost of providing civic services passing the burden on the shrinking tax base.
It's not the shrinking tax base that's to blame. Its the city mismanagement of it's pension fund [post-gazette.com]. "That need stems from decades of questionable management of the city's pension fund, which holds around one-third of the $899 million it should to cover future obligations."
Re:Politicians always come up with a bullshit reas (Score:3, Interesting)
Is it time to go back to that "no taxation without representation" idea and a big way? I mean as in really... *no taxation without representation* - if they do not let you vote, they can't tax you.
And forget all the justifications what will be raised as to why you *just have to tax* those who can't vote.
all the best,
drew
Re:The whole story... (Score:1, Interesting)
There are many problems with your comment:
1. The schools and hospitals do pay for water and sewage services.
2. The city had negotiated payments in lieu of taxes from these non-profits. These proposals have caused these payments to be withheld until this matter is resolved.
3. The schools, especially the University of Pittsburgh, have their own security services and they actually provide much of the police protection for the areas around Pitt, Carnegie Mellon, and nearby schools and hospitals.
4. There is no provision under state law for such a city tax and it is therefore blatantly illegal.
5. His tax proposals also apply to students at purely public institutions such as the Community College of Allegheny County.
It's Pittsburgh (Score:4, Interesting)
In other news, the mayor left for the weekend, and the average IQ of the city increased.
You know how it is - every vilage has its' idiot, and Pittsburgh wants to be able to say "We're #1" about something.
New slogan: Pittsburgh - it really IS the pits!
Or maybe they heard that the economy is changing, with more part-time, menial, mindless jobs, and they want to make sure their future workforce isn't over-qualified.
Or they want to make sure the supply of dumb voters increases.
Or they heard about "higher" education, and "don't want none of that people getting high on shit on school grounds - if they got money for weed, tax 'em".
Or the real explanation - they're broke, and figure that they can't tax the people who live there, because that means getting tossed out at the next election - so why not tax students who don't live there, can't vote, and are locked into a 4-year program?
Re:I'm no master politician but... (Score:3, Interesting)
I'm not sure if you're aware and making a joke about it, but Pittsburgh recently got an alcoholic drink tax. 10% on every poured drink.
The city is going to have to continue raising taxes everywhere it can, because we've had decades of really bad management.
Re:dumb idea (Score:3, Interesting)
I'm not sure if you're referring directly to Pittsburgh or not. There are areas of Pittsburgh, such as Oakland, where a majority of the land is owned by either the University of Pittsburgh, Carnegie Mellon, Duquesne, Carlow, etc. Some of this property even generates revenue for those schools in terms of shops or sublets. In recent years, as well, the Universities have been buying property that was previously owned by commercial enterprises that had paid taxes.
The situation is exacerbated in Pittsburgh because the University of Pittsburgh is one of the best medical universities in the world, and has affiliated with it the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center. Hospitals are also not taxed in Pittsburgh, and THEY have also been expanding. There was an attempt to add a surcharge to all hospital bills at one point, but that too got shot down.
In short, Pittsburgh can't afford it. If the schools are really as good as everyone thinks, they're probably worth the extra 1%. If it does have an affect and the universities stop growing as fast and stop taking over commercial real estate, that's probably also a bonus for the city. And, in aggregate, probably a much bigger bonus than the small loss of student population the surcharge will induce.
Re:Student effect on economy (Score:3, Interesting)
Pittsburgh really hates its students! (Score:3, Interesting)
The "fair share" argument is a wash. Those students have been attending CMU and Pittsburgh University for decades, and only now they thought of taxing them?
Plus, Pittsburgh has not learned the stern lessons of history. Raising taxes during an economic downturn is always a bad thing to do.
I suppose Pittsburgh overran its budget with the "goon squad" it hired to mistreat the students during G20, and now it needs to find a way to pay for it. Gas'em, Mace'em, Tax'em. The Pittsburgh Way.
Besides, if the students are buying goods and services in the city, they are already paying their "fair share" in taxes. This is just plain stupid.
Re:dumb idea (Score:4, Interesting)
but if you have a hospital that has that many people coming to it, then it has highly paid employees and families traveling to your city for medical care and professionals for conferences. If you're not making money with tens of thousands of people coming per day from outside your city to spend money there, then you're doing something wrong.
by this line of thinking why not raise taxes on poor people to get them to move out. Then most of the city will be university... or shops and businesses that support university, problem solved with the pesky citizens.
Living in Michigan, I see this difference very clearly between Ann Arbor and East Lansing. In Ann Arbor, the University and Hospital is in the very core of the city. Things going on at UofM are going on in Ann Arbor..students go everywhere in the city for shopping and work, it's well mixed and well connected. In East Lansing the situation is very different, being a land grant school MSU was put on a big empty square miles "in the country" specifically to develop the idea it was "separate" and the city of East Lansing is a little sliver between expensive Lansing suburbs...MSU is probably bigger than the city in raw area from the start. Now they have 30K students living in the middle of nowhere and your closest malls, restaurants are miles away and all the travel goes thru one little "suburb". It's a very "us versus them" attitude I don't see when I talk to people that live/work in Ann Arbor.
Re:Churches (Score:3, Interesting)
So I propose the same tax system we have for Income tax (federal at least). If the church brings in over a certain amount, their tax rate is X. For those churches that scrape by in poor neighborhoods, let them get their money back after filing. Of course, like income tax on individuals, this is ripe for abuse, but since we have IRS auditors, that shouldn't be too much of a problem to audit churches. (Of course we'd need to reform that whole private books thing...) I cite the recent Senate inquiries into Kenneth Copeland's monstrous ministry, one that REALLY seems to be a church based around the mission to make the Copeland's rich. (He, and the ministry, refused to release financial records to the feds... even though most of his contemporaries did so without incident.) The whole lot of the "name it-claim it" denomination are nothing more than modern day Pharisees. (but that's for another thread too..heh.)
OR, we could simply get property taxes from them... and mega-churches would be, by their very location/size, on the hook for more taxes than the 1st Street Missionary Baptist Temple that sits next to a vacant lot full of rubble in a distressed part of the city (hypothetical, but representative of many small neighborhood churches.)
I prefer the latter, myself. Taxing donations seems like it could be ripe for taxing ALL non-profits, and though some are scams, the legitimate ones who do good in their respective communities (including churches) would take a revenue hit they can ill afford even in good times, much less in the current craptacular economic situation.