<p>I haven't seen this posted anywhere yet, but I saw this article that the City of Pittsburgh is considering a 1% tax on college tuition for students attending in the city. Not a good trend. Pittsburgh</a> eyes students' wallets - USATODAY.com</p>
<p>[The</a> Tartan Online](<a href=“http://www.thetartan.org/]The”>http://www.thetartan.org/)
[The</a> Tartan Online : City proposes “fair share tax” on tuitions](<a href=“http://www.thetartan.org/2009/11/16/news/tax]The”>http://www.thetartan.org/2009/11/16/news/tax)</p>
<p>just one of the cost of over indulgence and two unfunded wars.</p>
<p>I don’t think this is a new idea. I am sure I read about this idea two or three years ago. Perhaps it was a different city, but I think it was Pittsburgh. </p>
<p>The mayor sounds serious this time.</p>
<p>I can’t see this as a general trend. Surely hosting major universities is a plus for cities, considering all the meetings/conventions and other visitor traffic related to the schools.</p>
<p>This mayor is a real moron. Way to fund your cities financial woes, stick it to the struggling college students. These cities are so lucky to have the schools in the first place, they create a ton of business even in a down economy and pay so much money out in taxes and salaries. I guess they’re just going for any place they think they can get some $$.</p>
<p>The local news has been reporting that this isn’t going to happen, and that there will be another approach to collect the estimated $15M that this tax would have collected. </p>
<p>Keep in mind that Pittsburgh is a city of colleges (Pitt, Carnegie Mellon, Duquesne, Robert Morris, Point Park, LaRoche, Carlow and others). The students do get a lot of services from the City which aren’t even remotely covered by the schools themselves. The City has been very supportive of students, giving them free transportation on the City’s buses for example. </p>
<p>Pitt is not the only location considering this. Our local papers reported that Rhode Island is doing it too (per the USA Today article). We don’t know how many head taxes might be buried in tuition bills if being collected by colleges.</p>
<p>Evanston has tried to tax NU tuition at least once before, but I believe they lost a legal challenge related to NU’s tax-exempt status. (And it being grotesquely unfair, among various other reasons its a dumb idea).</p>
<p>I’m pretty sure the university pays the bus company so that the students get free passes on the buses.</p>
<p>Being someone who detests all taxes, I am not sure how I feel about this. At first I was very much opposed. But my stance has softened. </p>
<p>While I believe the city, which has lived under democratic rule forever (you have to go back to 1936 to find the last Republican Mayor), has been financially mismanaged and too much promised to the unions. That said, the city’s argument is they have a huge amount of tax-exempt organizations (of which colleges are the biggest group) in the city that are getting a free ride paying nothing for city services. and that is in fact true.</p>
<p>In the past, the city had negotiated some payment in lieu of taxes from the colleges - but those agreements have expired and the colleges are balking at redoing them at the same level.</p>
<p>While the students do contribute to local businesses, they also do cost the city money in a host of services (for example - the amount spent to keep the college kiddies under control during the recent G-20 summit was extremely high. Weekends in Oakland require a much greater city police presence, etc).</p>
<p>I also find the college presidents responses to this both hypocritical and laughable. They are decrying the proposed 1% tax saying it will economically harm these students - and yet they have been jacking up tuition by %'s far greater than cost of living for years. </p>
<p>And for the so-called “struggling” college students - please. Really, for someone paying $50K in tuition and room and board a year at Carnegie Mellon, is another $400 going to dissuade them to attend or have a huge impact on their life?</p>
<p>I don’t think it will happen. Too much opposition all around.</p>
<p>Of the above colleges mentioned, I’m sure LaRoche isn’t in the city, and don’t think Robert Morris is either (unless RMU has a downtown campus I don’t know about).</p>
<p>It’s old news and maybe a dead horse. We discussed this on CC a few months back. What a terrible and anti-democratic idea, taxing pupils for their education.</p>
<p>I lived in Pittsburgh and studied there. I support the aim of the mayor but disagree with taxing student tuition. the problem is that Pittsburgh relies on income tax, more than other taxes, to fund their budget. Thus, many working people–particularly those at the Universities, financial service firms and hospitals (the biggest employers in pittsburgh)–live in the suburbs to avoid paying taxes yet they take advantage of many, many services in the city and certainly their employer does. But many of the employers are non-profits so they don’t pay taxes! What I think should happen is that a commuter tax for working commuters should go into effect even if you work for non-profits. If y ou live in the suburb but your employer is in the city you should have to pay an income tax…maybe not as high as a city resident (only use some services) but some type of tax. Students living in Pittsburgh and working there will already be paying taxes and should NOT pay tax on their tuition. Will families with kids in private high schools have to pay tuition taxes? I don’t see that in the proposal.</p>
<p>I see the same problem in DC where the city is totally dependent on an income tax in a city with really high unemployment and poverty yet the relatively rich suburbanites that commute in (guilty myself) do not pay any taxes to DC!? What’s with that? I enjoy many of the benefits that the city offers–including clearing the streets in winter, services, etc. and while my employer pays some of these costs through fees, the vast burden comes from a levy on the federal government and income taxes of residents. Not fair since many, many private firms are located in DC.</p>
<p>^^^</p>
<p>There already exists a commuter tax - the state allowed municipalities to implement this a few years ago as a result of the City of Pittsburghh’s lobbying and financial woes. And people who work in Pittsburgh but live in the suburbs do not avoid paying taxes - they pay income taxes to their municipality along with the commuter tax to the City of Pittsburgh and a property tax to the county, school district and municipality</p>
<p>A commuter tax is pure taxation without representation. </p>
<p>A student tax would be different - as the students do in fact live in the city for 8 to 9 months a year and could vote there if they choose to do so.</p>
<p>The students use more city services than the commuters - so why should they not pay their fair share like the commuters</p>
<p>The more I think about this, if a tax is needed (again see my comments above about my dislike for all taxes), this does seem like a reasonable way to address the issue of the large amount of non-profits in the city.</p>
<p>Thanks for update on Pittsburgh commuter tax…I don’t see it as taxation without representation since a company and workers can vote with their feet…often employers get lucrative tax breaks to locate to a city to bring employment to the area and then the employees live outside of the city. You don’t “have” to work in the city so you technically could vote with your feet if you don’t like the commuter tax. I know we moved to the suburbs to avoid the Pittsburgh income tax–local taxes were much lower in the suburbs at that time. If I were a taxed as a commuter, I may have chosen to stay within the city limits and pay my taxes. The reverse situation with low taxes in the suburbs leads to a free-rider situation with the commuters enjoying the employment and free services in the city at the cost to the city dwellers. </p>
<p>I agree about the need for students to also pay for their share of the use of city services. I actually forwarded yesterday’s article to our school board as a potential idea for our funding shortfall this year–we have several non-profit and for-profit college/universities in the county. Personally, rather than tax students, I would tax the university a head tax–number of students enrolled–to cover services for those students. The university could either pass this on to the students in fees or eat it or something in between. I don’t see why CMU students should pay more than Pitt students just because the tuition is higher…average cost per student in the city of Pittsburgh should be the same…</p>
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<li><p>The problem with commuter taxes is that, indeed, the jobs migrate to the suburbs, although in theory not too many if the tax is kept proportionate to the benefits of working in the city.</p></li>
<li><p>What it looks like to me is that the tuition tax is a gigantic stalking-horse for PILOTs. We have the same issue here – a huge proportion of acreage and economic activity is conducted by tax-exempt entities. It’s great that they’re here, we’re proud as heck of them, everyone loves them, but it’s really hard to have a tax base with that many holes in it. And if you try to raise the money off of the existing taxpayers, they vote with their votes AND their feet. Of course the universities – among the richest, most powerful organizations in the area – should contribute something, even if constitutionally they don’t have to. This is just a way to get them to pony up a bit more than they were offering.</p></li>
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<p>on one side, it is Welfare, and who likes welfare except for those who receive it?</p>
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<p>That makes sense to me. My guess is the city in looking at what they can legally impose has determined that the tax has to be on the student - and not the not for profit organization. But clearly, it costs the same in city services for a student at Pitt vs CMU so they should pay the same if such a tax is implemented</p>
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<p>Huh? What welfare? Municipal services are mainly police, firefighters, trash collection, street repair, park maintenance, public health and building code inspections. And schools – something college students don’t use a lot.</p>
<p>If I remember correctly, we paid something like $400 in fees to Pitt this semester. I assumed at least part of that fee went to the city for bus service. I could be wrong.</p>
<p>^^you are correct. Part of your fee is a bus pass</p>
<p>I live about an hour outside the city. Most of my hs class will go to school in Allegheny County and they are all up in arms. Some would change college plans to avoid this tax.</p>
<p>It is ridiculous</p>
<p>MamaBear - Robert Morris does have a downtown campus, and LaRoche falls within Allegheny County. Not sure how schools like the Art Institute or CCAC would be treated, or schools like IUP that have classes in the area. I wonder if my CLE will be taxed, or other professional continuing education courses.</p>
<p>It reminds me of when the emergency services tax was imposed without a lot of thought (for some of the same services now being mentioned again). The first year was very painful when Allegheny County sought to collect $50+ dollars from minimum wage workers’ and students’ first paychecks of the year.</p>