Philadelphia Wage Tax ?
- Thread starter zethya
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From what I hear that answer is yes
markkus757
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When I worked for AA back in the 90's, I would get taxed if I worked at the ticket counter in terminal A because that was considered inside the city limits. The gate area was not. I always tried to bid the gates so I wouldn't pay the city tax. I stopped working there in 1998, so I'm not sure if the county line has been redrawn or not......
Exactly.
If you live in the City of Philadelphia it doesn't matter where you work, you pay 100% of the resident rate.
For non-residents it does matter where you work as to what percentage of city wage tax you pay. It used to be that you either paid 100% or you paid zero, depending on where you're scheduled shift was located. International, the bottom half of B-con, and commuters were out of the city, so no wage tax was paid. Everyone else paid 100%. About ten years ago the company came out with a different method of city wage payment. They broke down the different zones into percentages for city wage tax payments. I forget the exact percentages now, but working at the end of B-Con may have to pay 20% while those at the end of C-Con may pay 65%. The rational here is that someone working out of the city at the end of B-Con still may have to go into the city at some point during their shift to do something, like drop bags off at baggage claim. Someone at the end of C-Con, which is in the city, may at some point go out of the city to perform part of their job. Of course management took care of themselves when figuring the percentages and quite a few of them who were always in the city only paid a small percentage of what they should have.
Some agents will take bad days off just to make sure and work in an area that has a low percentage or is completely outside the city. There is a City Wage Tax Refund form that you can file at the end of the year to get a refund on tax money that you shouldn't have paid. If you work a lot of OT outside the city but your scheduled shift is in the city then you're getting taxed on your scheduled shifts percentage rate. Also, your vacation and sick time is taxed by the City and shouldn't be. File the form and get that money back. Of course it should work in the opposite, but no one is lining up because they underpaid Philly.
a city wage tax?? that's crazy
US1YFARE
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At one point it was, and still may be, the highest wage tax in the country. Fortunately, if you live in the suburbs, your township's local wage tax is offset by what you pay to PHL and no township has a higher wage tax than PHL. It was over 5% in the 80's and maybe even 90's.
I believe the current wage tax is 4.301% for residents of Philadelphia and 3.7716% for non-residents working in Philadelphia. Prior to January 1, 2006, the rates were 4.331% for residents of Philadelphia and 3.8197% for non-residents.
But, look at all of the services the City provides for that revenue. :blink: If you think that is bad, you should see the business tax rates...when you hear about businesses leaving PHL, you now know why.
Don't get me started on why PHL isn't able to attract the conventions that other major cities attract...
Let me nudge you along then. I worked for a local, large company that hosted many events at the Phila Convention Center in the late 90's and 2000-2001. Some of these events brought over 8000 attendees. We finally said goodbye after consistantly poor relations with the labor force(s). They were simply unwilling to work with us on ANY requests that began to appear rational and reasonable.
For example.....
The exhibit floor and meeting rooms required a number of computers and related equipment. Our trucks would pull up to the docks and we had to wait for one union to unload the items. Then we had to rely on another union to physically transport them to the locations. Finally, a THIRD union was responsible for picking up the equipment from the cart and placing it on the table/stand/podium. But it didn't stop there. Another union had to come and connect the cables and plug them into the network/electric outlets. We could never coordinate the groups to make this process work smoothly, even though we were the only group in the facility, so they had no other exhibits to setup. It was a constant waiting game and often we found the guys we needed off in some corner or back hallway smoking and B.S.'ing with their peers. Folks, this is why union labor has a bad wrap people. What took them 3 days would have taken anyone with a work ethic and mind for efficiency 1 day or less.
Now, consider all those steps involved in a seemingly simple process. And, believe me, it isn't hard to organize some people to unload, transport and setup some computer gear. When you add up the labor costs associated with this versus a more efficient process (i.e. less labor charges, less scratch for the union coffers), you see why more big name conferences outright cancelled or didn't bother doing business in PHL. And, since the U.S. exhibitor business isn't all that big, it's easy for word to get around telling people "don't do business in Philadelphia". And pro-union advocates wonder how their brotherhood gets a bad wrap....
N965VJ
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Interesting. Why then are they getting ready to expanded the PA (not Philadelphia) Convention Center in Philadelphia into the largest contiguous exhibit space of any convention center in the Northeast (541,000 sq. ft.) and the largest convention center ballroom on the East Coast (60,000 sq. ft.) - effectively doubling it's current size?
P.S. Doesn't anyone have a direct answer to my original posted Question ???
EyeInTheSky
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US1YFARE
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You actually asked two questions in the same sentence.
#1 - No
#2 - Yes
Read my previous post for further information.
Because an agreement was made with the six (or so) labor groups that work the convention center to lower costs and streamline the operation. I believe the agreement was reached about three years ago. Before then it was a joke, and this is coming from a union guy.
