.@WolfForPA wanted to raise our sales tax by 17%! http://t.co/L56Klt4c5c pic.twitter.com/L8YojykvAM #PAGOV
— PA GOP (@PAGOP) May 12, 2014
The Pennsylvania GOP is attacking Tom Wolf for supporting a 1 percent sales tax increase while he was the Revenue Secretary under Ed Rendell. Their lie de jour claim goes as this:
As Ed Rendell’s chief tax collector, Tom Wolf tried to raise our sales tax by nearly 17%
and the source they cite, the Pittsburgh Post Gazette, reads:
Mr. Rendell has proposed raising the sales tax from 6 percent to 7 percent in most counties, but from 7 percent to 8 percent in Allegheny and Philadelphia counties. If the Legislature approves the move by June 30, it would raise an additional $1.3 billion in the fiscal year that starts July 1.
So where does this “17%” tax increase come from? It comes from the simple “percent change” formula:
6 percent – 7 percent / 6 percent x 100 = 16.666
This is a ludicrous use of skewing the numbers by the PA GOP.
1. 1 is 16.667% of six and properly rounded 17% is accurate.
2. Your equation is wrong. The correct answer is -110.667%
3. Even if we do it as I think you intended and ignore the order of operations rules, you would still get -16.667%.
Thanks,math major…
as for your answer to #3, all values using a % change are always absolute. 7-6 = 1. Try that.
2) “raise our sales tax by 17%,”
no they went up by 1%. If the sales tax was to go up by 17% it would be a 23%. The PA GOP is using a formula that measures the percent change in values not the actual numerical difference. I was a science major and used this formula my whole entire college career…