1) Pennsylvania's tax burden is very unfairly distributed. According to the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy's Who Pays? study, middle-class and low-income Pennsylvanians pay a much greater share of their incomes in taxes than do the state's wealthiest citizens.

After offsetting for federal tax deductions of state taxes, those with the lowest incomes (the bottom 20% or earners) in PA pay 11.4% of their incomes in taxes. Those with incomes in the top 1% pay 3.5% of their incomes in taxes. Those with incomes in the middle 20% pay 8.8%.

In other words, high-income taxpayers in Pennsylvania pay state and local taxes far below the national "average" rate for all taxpayers.

2) The Tax Foundation is a conservative group, the same organization that proclaims "Tax Freedom Day" (based on flawed analysis of federal tax data that distorts the middle-class tax burden and that has even raised the eyebrows of Alan Greenspan), and their findings make an interesting contrast to the repeated claims of conservative Pennsylvania business organizations that Pennsylvania is a "high tax state."