Following up on Brady's post ("Due Credit") on the ACORN action (and it looks like he beat me to it this morning, as I was typing) against the Eagles for the $9.6+ million owed in back luxury box revenue, I wanted to post on Mayor Nutter taking it to another set of tax deadbeats

It is good to see that the Administration is ensuring that while raising taxes he is calling out those who refuse to pay even at the current rates yet continue to enjoy all the benefits of doing business in our City. I think many of us will have issues with the types of taxes and fees proposed, but at least raising revenue (and collecting owed revenue) are becoming a larger part of how we make our way through this troubling time.

We should welcome a debate on the regressive/progressive nature of the taxes to be imposed; at the same time making sure that the City goes after back taxes as aggressively the City has been in the past in bringing foreclosure actions against homeowners behind on their property taxes. We should discuss the continuation of a 10-year tax abatement along side the plan to raise residential property taxes in tune with a deeply flawed assessment system that de facto sees many low-income neighborhood residents paying much more of their actual value than their neighbors living in more affluent surroundings. When we go to the old H-burg to ask for a sales tax increase, can we also ask to revisit the whole "no taxes allowed" thingie on the banking and insurance industries? If working families are being asked to pay more, in order to ensure that essential services are maintained they will do so stoically as long as businesses and their more well-off neighbors are doing the same.

We all must pay our "fair share", so to take certain taxes off the table while raising others is giving us false choices. Prove to us that certain business taxes are more small business (and working families) crushing than an increased sales tax and we'll go along. Promise to tackle assessments (and abatements) at the same time you ask the neighborhoods to carry more of the weight and you'll hear only a few gripes when you raise our property taxes 6.8% (17% on the 40% city portion, btw make taxes simpler while your at it).

All in all, thanks and credit are due the Mayor in taking in to consideration the fuller picture despite his hoped for (along the Inky editorial board) vision of drastically lowering taxes. Credit also for calling out folks delinquent on their taxes who may have given to your campaign. Increased listening and increased fairness deserve credit, selective listening and regressive taxes don't. So lets see where we end up.

Today, the Mayor deserves at least a golf clap for going after a few folks in the country club crowd.