Governor Wolf Signs Compromise Pennsylvania Revenue Plan
HARRISBURG, Pa. (CBS) -- Pennsylvania Governor Tom Wolf has signed a bill that would raise tobacco taxes and impose sales taxes on digital downloads. The state House and Senate passed a revenue package Wednesday afternoon that will fund the new budget that took effect earlier this week.
Philadelphia's Vincent Hughes is the ranking Democrat on the state Senate Appropriations Committee. He says the compromise revenue deal "works for the time that we're in right now."
"Clearly, there's no broad-based tax increases," Hughes said. "The largest impact is essentially on smokers, with the various cigarette tax increases. And, of course, that's an individual's decision."
In addition to a dollar per pack increase in the cigarette tax, there will also be taxes on smokeless tobacco and e-cigarettes. Digital downloads will also be subject to the state sales tax.
Delaware County Republican Bill Adolph, chairman of the House Appropriations Committee says, by way of example, books printed on paper are subject to the sales tax.
"Since the last time the sales tax code was looked at, we now have an awful lot of Internet technology, and we're just updating our sales tax code," Adolph said. "So if you're reading books through the digital download, they'll now be subject to the Pennsylvania tax."
Meanwhile, language allowing an exemption from the state liquor laws for the Democratic Convention has been folded into a budget companion bill known as the fiscal code.
A separate bill to allow for the exemption had gotten bogged down over language unrelated to the DNC.
