Save the Arts in PA

Excerpt from the Pennsylvania Budget and Policy Center.

The budget agreement cuts spending from $28.1 billion in 2008-09 to $27.95 billion in 2009-10 and relies heavily on reserves and fund transfers to balance the budget. The agreement includes $1.2 billion in “recurring revenue”; however, some of the revenue sources are temporary. Based on media reports, the major components of the revenue plan are:

• $300 million from business tax changes. They include temporarily freezing the Capital Stock and Franchise Tax at the 2008 rate for the next three years. The increased revenue is offset by further tax cuts for large businesses. On balance, this will raise $300 million in 2009-10 and $458 million in 2010-11. The tax cuts represent a permanent revenue loss in exchange for a temporary tax increase.
• $200 million for the introduction of table games in casinos.  Most of this first-year revenue is for licenses; the revenue declines to $121 million in 2010-11.
• $100 million from lifting the sales tax exemption on admissions costs for theater, dance, concerts and performing arts, as well as museums, historical sites, zoos and parks.
• $171 million by redirecting to the General Fund 25 cents of the cigarette tax that was used to help offset doctors’ malpractice premiums.
• $97 million in 2009-10 and $146 million in 2010-11 from a 25-cent increase in the cigarette tax.
• $30 million by adding mini cigars – cigarette-sized cigars – to the state cigarette tax. These products fall under the federal cigarette tax.
• $20 million in 2009-10 and $45 million in 2010-11 from taxing small games of chance.
• $65 million in leases from drilling on state park lands in the Marcellus Shale.
• $40 million in cuts to tax credits.