Best cuts, tax-wise

Not all tax cuts are equal. Trimming the hated wage tax is great for city residents and commuters who work downtown. But there's nothing like cutting taxes that go direct to business' bottom line.
In the city, that means the Business Privilege Tax.
Proposals to trim the gross-receipts portion are before City Council, but the city should be taking more direct aim at the entire BPT.
Why? Because the tax is said to be one more drag on businesses creating jobs in the key, downtown office sector.
As usual, critics of more business tax cuts say they threaten city services. Looked at another way, though, cutting business taxes could spur jobs that, in turn, spur city revenues.
At the Center City District, Paul R. Levy (pictured) has done extensive research on the importance of the city's office sector to residents in every neighborhood. In accepting the coveted Philadelphia Award last week, Levy noted that downtown jobs mean City Hall jobs (which means improved city services.) A highlight:

Each time we fill an office building the size of Liberty Place,we generate 4,000 jobs and $6.4 million in salaries from those jobs will be paid to employees living in North Philadelphia with millions more to every other neighborhood across the city and region.
So any agenda for prosperity and growth has got to combine business competitiveness to create more jobs with quality, well-funded public transportation and quality public education to connect our residents to those jobs. ...
That makes downtown the primary source of the resources we need ... Every time we fill an office building the size of Liberty Place, we generate enough local taxes to hire 514 new caseworkers in the Department of Human Services, or put 372 new police officers on neighborhood streets. What we do downtown creates opportunity in every neighborhood in the city.