Tax Justice 

Pennsylvanians work hard, day in and day out, to take care of their families—but many of us are struggling to make ends meet while wealthy corporations and the 1% get richer and richer.

Yet we tax work too much and wealth too little. Working families in Pennsylvania pay among the highest state and local tax rates in the country, but the state’s ultra-rich pay less than half those rates. And greedy multinational corporations pay Pennsylvania no corporate taxes at all.

At the federal level, billionaires pay barely any taxes and corporations escape from tax rates that are already too low by hiding their profits abroad.

When greedy corporations pay little, we pay for the benefits they get from the government.

Because wealthy corporations and the ultra-rich don’t pay what they owe, our state lacks the resources to provide all Pennsylvanians with an opportunity to benefit from their own hard work and contribute to their communities. We can’t provide everyone a good K-12 education or the opportunity for worker training or a college education. We can’t make our communities safe. And we can’t make health care, child care, and senior care affordable.

WHAT DOES TAX JUSTICE MEAN?

Tax justice means that ultra-rich individuals and wealthy corporations pay what they owe.

It means that their share of taxes enables us to provide the common goods we all need to create a growing, high-wage economy and a strong future for all of us.

And it means rejecting even more tax cuts for large corporations and the wealthy—tax cuts that create few jobs but undermine public education, the building and improvement of roads and bridges, and other public goods that create jobs.

Our campaign for tax fairness is for every Pennsylvanian, no matter where we were born, where we live, what we look like, or how much we have. Join your neighbors from around the state to tell the Pennsylvania General Assembly to pass tax justice legislation, including the Fair Share Tax plan, a severance tax on natural gas fracking, corporate tax reform, and a working families’ tax credit. And stand with us to support federal proposals to make billionaires and wealthy corporations pay their fair share.

We need tax justice to build a commonwealth and country where everyone, not just the ultra-rich, has the opportunity to thrive.