April 26 will start a 54-day opportunity for Pennsylvanians to ‘get right’ with the state tax department by paying overdue taxes without occurring a penalty and only having to pay half of the interest due.
While this may seem unfair to those of us meet our obligations when due, the Revenue Department estimates that it will be able to generate $190 million for fiscal year 2010 / 2011.
A similar program in New Jersey generated $725 million over forty-two days!
Which raises an interesting question of whether New Jersey has more dead beats or a greater number of Pennsylvanians aren’t going to pay their state taxes, no matter what.