New Study of Business Tax Burdens

The Council on State Taxation has released a new study on state and local business taxes.  It is a good primer on what taxes business pay (for instance, I was surprised to learn that property taxes on businesses consume about 4 times what corporate income taxes do).

From the Pennsylvania perspective here are some key facts:

• As a percentage of total taxes, Pennsylvania business taxes rank below the national average, 41% to 44% – this includes higher than average on state taxes (41.5% to 39.7%) and lower than average on local taxes (40.4% to 50.7%)
• The dollar amount of Pennsylvania business taxes collected increased 50.4% between 2002 and 2007 – higher than the national average of 46.8%
• Business taxes consume 4.9% of Pennsylvania’s GDP, the same as the national average.