Mayor Jim Kenney plans to call for continuing to cut Philly’s business tax in his final budget proposal

Mayor Jim Kenney on Wednesday called for continued business tax cuts, laid out what he hopes to do when he leaves office in 2024, and offered some advice to his eventual successor.

The mayor’s remarks came in his final address at the Chamber of Commerce for Greater Philadelphia’s annual luncheon, which has traditionally served as an opportunity for mayors to preview their priorities in the spring budget season. Kenney said he planned to include cuts to the business income and receipts tax in his next budget proposal, which will be unveiled in March.

“It’s incumbent on all of us [in] the debate for who’s going to be the next mayor, who’s going to be the next members of Council, that we continue to commit to following that through till we get to the point where that’s no longer a burden for business,” Kenney said in an on-stage interview with Gregory E. Deavens, president and CEO of Independence Blue Cross.

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Over the last two decades, city leaders have sought to incrementally lower taxes that the Philadelphia business community criticizes as a hindrance to job growth through a series of small annual rate cuts. In recent years, progressives have pushed back, saying the city needs more revenue, not less, to address such pressing needs as poverty and gun violence.

Although Kenney in the past has favored lowering the business income and receipts tax, he did not include a cut in his original budget proposal last year, focusing instead on softening the real estate tax impact of the first citywide property reassessment in three years. Council then pushed through a plan to lower the net income portion of the tax from 6.2% to 5.99%, which the administration supported.

With surprisingly strong revenue boosting cash reserves in the city’s nearly $6 billion budget, a push for more tax cuts is likely to play a major role in budget negotiations this spring, when lawmakers and the administration will hash out the final budget before the next mayor succeeds Kenney.

The primary for the mayor’s race and elections for all 17 Council seats is May 16. Council must approve a budget by the end of June.

At Wednesday’s event, Kenney also reflected on his time in office and addressed criticism that he has failed to be a cheerleader for the city or appear eager to do the work of being mayor.

“I’ve done my best every single day, and I care,” Kenney said. “I think maybe sometimes I care too much because that’s expressed in my face, and [people ask], ‘Why aren’t you smiling?’ Well, because there’s not always a reason to smile. I would love to smile all the time, but you’d think I was nuts.”

Asked what he will do after leaving office in January 2024, Kenney told a story about being forced to go to a performance of the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater at the Walnut Street Theater when he was a freshman at St. Joseph’s Prep.

“I had never experienced anything like that in my life. My mouth was agape,” said Kenney, a noted Broadway fan. “From that point on, I craved live cultural performance.”

Kenney said he hopes to be able to recreate that experience for Philadelphia children.

“If I could run a nonprofit or have a foundation that would take children from every neighborhood in our city and put them in that Alvin Ailey experience, or that orchestra experience, or that ballet experience, or that Barnes [Foundation] or Art Museum experience, that would change them because there’s such beauty in that stuff,” Kenney said.

As for who will replace him as mayor, Kenney declined to weigh in on the candidates in the crowded Democratic primary seeking his job, some of whom were in the audience.

But he offered a succinct piece of advice to whoever emerges victorious: “Be friends with the Council president.”

Kenney and Council President Darrell L. Clarke aren’t known to be close personal friends. But they speak weekly, and the mayor, himself a former Council member, has enjoyed more success shepherding his priorities through the legislature than his predecessor, Michael A. Nutter, who often clashed with Council and saw some of his initiatives founder during Clarke’s tenure.