'Fair Share Tax' Proposed For Pittsburgh Residents

PITTSBURGH, PA — A city council member introduced legislation Tuesday that would add a 2 percent tax on income income from capital gains, dividends, rents, royalties, patents, copyrights, estates and trusts.

Councilwoman Barb Warwick, a Greenfield Democrat, introduced the proposal at a council meeting. She contended such a levy would generate $51 million annually for the city, which is undergoing extreme financial difficulties and could run out of money within five years.

The $51 million figure comes from an estimate by the Keystone Research Center, a Harrisburg-based public policy and economic research center.

"The Pittsburgh Fair Share Tax is a simple idea,"a center study stated.

"Instead of just taxing income from wages (active income from working ), a fair share tax would also tax investment income generated from wealth (often referred to as unearned income or passive income.

"This tax ensures that those with the greatest ability to pay contributes their fair share to city revenues as opposed to an across-the-board tax increases that asks more of working families"

The tax would not place levies on retirement income, social security, unemployment benefits or federal active duty pay for military service.

According to an analysis by the research center, if the fair share tax was applied, the highest income 20 percent of city residents would pay 92 percent of the levy and the top 1 percent alone would pay about 52 percent.

Among the bottom 80 percent of earners, only 13 percent would see and increase and the average tax hike for them would be about $20 per year.

The research center said the revenue estimates come from the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy and were verified by the Pennsylvania Department of Revenue.

The research center's staff includes Jake Pawlak, who served as deputy mayor and director of Pittsburgh's Office of Management & Budget under former Mayor Ed Gainey from 2022 to 2026. During that time, Pawlak often insisted the city's finances were stable.