About The Chamber

Business taxes:

• The total business tax burden in Pennsylvania is too high. Business taxes must be lowered in order for Pennsylvania to be competitive with neighboring states.
• Current tax laws in Pennsylvania are very complex to interpret. They should be simplified so that they can be understood by the reasonable business person.
• The tax structure must be fair to all. The Chamber opposes any change to the uniformity requirements.

Health care:

• Health care coverage should not be reliant on the business community. The Chamber opposes any effort to require the business community to provide health care coverage.
• Individuals need to be personally responsible for their health care. Therefore, individuals must have greater access to information that will allow them to make educated decisions about their coverage and treatment options. Mandated coverage should be used only for illnesses of a catastrophic nature.

Legislative operations:

• The business community needs an assured legislative process that will allow issues that are important to business to be addressed in a thoughtful and decisive way.
• The cost of legislative operations in Pennsylvania is too high and must be reduced by using good business practices to cut wasteful and unnecessary spending.

Adopted – April, 2010

These bus lines, operated by TMA Bucks, for six and four years respectively, provide access to hundreds of jobs for area residents. The federal funding formula for the Jobs Access Reverse Commute (JARC) program will provide $700,000 fewer dollars to the greater Philadelphia region.

Adopted – March, 2009
Status: Funding for these lines was restored in 2009 by the County Commissioners.

The EFCA would remove the requirement for a secret ballot process for defining union representation, the secret ballot process preserves the ability of individuals to make determinations free of coercion; and the NLRA was designed to protect employees from intimidation, by either employee or union.

Adopted – October, 2008 / Reaffirmed – April, 2010
Status: As of August 2010, this legislation has not passed. Labor union groups are still lobbying for this legislation.

The system of 560 local tax collectors was inefficient with lack of uniform withholding, varying thoroughness of records, training and resources, and a failure to coordinate leading to a loss of local revenue. The proposed legislation provided for 66 countywide tax collection districts, uniform withholding, distribution & reporting, oversight and enforcement; and reduced burden on businesses and taxpayers.

Adopted – March, 2008
Act 32 was signed into law resulting in a reduction from 560 local EIT collectors to 69.