"It's a tremendous victory for businesses in the city . . . and for people looking for jobs," he said. "This is the biggest impact in tax reform done for businesses in the history of Philadelphia in a single day."
Councilman James F. Kenney, who sponsored the bill to help start-up businesses, said that "almost every problem we deal with in this city" is caused by people out of work. Both bills, he said, are meant to jump-start employment.
Government figures place the city's unemployment at 11 percent, but Kenney said the real figure was probably closer to 25 percent.
"Imagine, if every person in this city who could work was working, the money we would not spend on those human services and police and courts and prisons," he said.
The bill cosponsored by Green and Councilwoman Maria Quiñones Sánchez would provide a $100,000 exemption on the gross-receipts portion of the business-privilege tax. Businesses also would not have to pay the net-income portion on the first $100,000 in sales.
The bill also moves the city to what's known as single sales factor apportionment, meaning businesses are taxed only on sales made in the city.
That change would aid larger companies that do most of their business outside the city and might encourage some companies to locate here.
Single sales was part of the tax-incentive package that recently enticed Teva Pharmaceuticals to choose the city over the suburbs for its new distribution center.
Edward Kicak is the chief financial officer of Sandmeyer Steel, which shares a "fence line" with the property that will host the new Teva facility. The steel company has been in the city for nearly 60 years and employs 115 people.
"If the privilege tax as currently regulated weighs heavily on a business like Teva," Kicak testified, "then I can guarantee it does on its neighbor, Sandmeyer Steel Co."
