The "Johnstown Flood" Tax
Monday August 27, 2007
Many of you have probably heard of the 1889 Johnstown Flood, one of the worst natural disasters in United States history. What you may not know, however, is that another great flood hit Johnstown in March 1936, a flood that is still taxing Pennsylvania alcohol sales.
Originally created to channel emergency relief funds to victims of the Johnstown Flood, the Johnstown Flood Tax is a 10 percent temporary tax that was placed on the sale of all alcohol in the commonwealth of Pennsylvania. It was only supposed to last a few years to raise the $41 million necessary to rebuild the community - an effort that was achieved by the end of 1942. Nearly 70 years later, that tax is still in place and now stands at 18 percent (before the statewide 6% sales tax is tacked on).
Originally created to channel emergency relief funds to victims of the Johnstown Flood, the Johnstown Flood Tax is a 10 percent temporary tax that was placed on the sale of all alcohol in the commonwealth of Pennsylvania. It was only supposed to last a few years to raise the $41 million necessary to rebuild the community - an effort that was achieved by the end of 1942. Nearly 70 years later, that tax is still in place and now stands at 18 percent (before the statewide 6% sales tax is tacked on).
The near $200 million collected annually no longer goes to flood victims, however, instead going into the general fund for lawmakers to use as they see fit. A temporary tax that has overstayed its welcome.
Comments
I never heard of this tax before today (Dec 5, 2006)- it was referenced in another article — amazing - and we still pay …thieving politicians
why isn’t this money used to fix the bridge problem in pa. ????
this needs to be looked into !
I sent an email to Gov. Rendell a year ago asking when is the Johnstown flood tax going to be taken off the tax books….Received no reply !! I guess I really didn’t expect one from socialist minded politicians.
Keep the tax. Mandate that it be used to help flood victims statewide,not channeled to the General Assembly. The tax generates approximately $220 million per year. Over 71 years, that’s over $15 billion dollars.
also they put a 6% tax on the 18% tax. put the flood tax only on flood situations. even on bridge maintenance.
I live in Johnstown, PA and since the flood is pretty well cleaned up this tax should be used to benefit the new plague in Johnstown. It should be used strictly to bring jobs into PA, try to lower the unemployment rates in PA, and help with the thousands of Pennsylvanians without health insurance (Notice I said statewide not just in Johnstown).
I just heard about this during a newcast and had to look it up to see what the deal was. Amazing but sadly not surprising. I’m always suspicious of “discretionary” spending, and would like to know exactly what it’s been spent on for the last 60+ years. If it’s not going to be repealed (ha!), it should be acknowledged as a permanent tax and dedicated to something like statewide disaster relief.
This “temporary” tax should be eliminated. The less money Harrisburg politicians receive, the less they can misspend, misuse, and squander.