PA. House votes to exempt timber operations from sales tax - gift to Koch Brothers?

[JPZenger]

Today, the Pa. House voted to exempt all activities involving timbering from the 6% PA. State Sales and Use Tax. The bill was mainly sponsored by conservative Republicans.

The PA. State Constitution requires uniformity in taxation, which is why PA. is not allowed to have a progressive income tax, unlike many other states.

One Dem representative said he believes it was a gift to the Koch Brothers. The Koch Brothers own Koch Industries, which purchased the Georgia-Pacific Corporation. Georgia-Pacific not only produces lumber, but also makes hundreds of types of building materials and consumer paper products from wood products.

[Curmudgeoness]

1. I am surprised that it wasn't exempt before this.

Most manufacturing, or companies that are not the final product users, are exempt from sales and use taxes in PA. And since timber is not normally a final product, this seems like something that would have been exempt. The final product though, will be taxed. The reasoning is that sales taxes should be levied only once on items, not at every step of the manufacturing process.

[blkmusclmachine]

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