Nutter proposes “unprecedented” $120 million IT budget, moves toward paperless

Mayor Nutter has announced plans to significantly invest in city information technology and pursue paperless government efficiencies in an attempt to improve tech infrastructure, cut costs and streamline city services.

“We may not be completely paperless, but we will use less paper,” Nutter said in his budget address to City Council this morning before a packed crowed that filled the historic Council chamber’s floor and balcony seating.

If City Council approves the budget, Nutter says that an “unprecedented” investment in city technology will provide $120 million to improve IT over the next five years, including $25 million in FY11.

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City of Philadelphia to offer tax breaks to tech companies

Tech companies in Philadelphia might finally see some long-awaited light at the end of the tax tunnel.

Mayor Michael Nutter has announced tax breaks for technology, design and video game firms that would hopefully encourage more companies to set up shop in the city.

As the Metro reported this morning, under the new tax policy, tech sector businesses would not be taxed for services sold outside of Philadelphia, which could pave the way for tax overhauls for all city businesses. The news follows Nutter’s address to the Greater Philadelphia Chamber of Commerce last week outlining the need to experiment with the city’s tax structure.

Videogame Growth Initiative organizer Mike Worth, who’s helped lead a grass roots effort to lobby City Hall on tech tax issues, as we’ve reported, tells Metro that the incentives might help convince his game development studio Space Whale Studios to move downtown.

Links: Don’t attract outside tech firms, a college iPhone course and More

DEFINITE READS

• The Inquirer’s Mike Armstrong reports on a study that finds little benefit in tax-based incentives used to attract high-tech companies, instead recommending encouraging existing companies to grow.
• A Wired magazine blog profiles Philly 8-bit scenester RJ “RJD2″ Krohn.

After the jump, a Sixers forward with an IT problem, a college iPhone course and more.

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How to open a business in the City of Philadelphia, or 15 reasons people move to the suburbs

So you want to open a business in Philadelphia?

A Technically Philly reader recently launched her first venture in the city’s limits and thought the process was agonizing enough and the help non-existent enough to share.

She’s fairly straight-laced, she tells us, so she wanted to open her operation as legitimately and legally as possible. Yes, a good tax-paying business opening up shop in Philadelphia, so I’m sure we all expect the red-carpet treatment from the city.

Except, of course, as you know, the process was laborious and involved so many wrong turns, that we decided to give you all a short hand.

Below, in addition to the 15 steps and more than two months this passionate entrepreneur took to give money to the city, we show you the right way to launch your business in Philadelphia in five (oh my God, we know it won’t actually be easy) steps.

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Links: World Series tech scene match up, city stimulus management in “disarray” and More

DEFINITE READS

• Philadelphia Business Journal’s Peter Key shares two interviews and their comparisons between the technology startup communities of Philadelphia and the 67th ward.
• The Inquirer’s Mike Armstrong reports on a rash of more ugly numbers related to employment and Philadelphia’s business tax burden.
• Inquirer City Hall reporter Marcia Gelbart reports on a fairly startling amount of “confusion and disarray” by the city government and its management and pursuit of federal stimulus dollars.

After the jump, more World Series economic impact math, you’re going to be hired in health care and ten more stories to chew on, including our best read piece of the week and a video pick me up.

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Links: Rittenhouse realtime search engine, PA tax credit stays alive and More

DEFINITE READS

Philly Tech News reports that five of Business Week’s 25 2009 Finalists for America’s Best Young Entrepreneurs have ties to Philly, four being based in the region, including Notehall, whom we recently profiled.

The Inquirer reports that 30,000 sustainable-building advocates are due to land in Center City come November 2010 as part of an international conference and, uhm, we’re already behind.

The Inquirer’s Joe DiStefano writes about regional native Evan Britton who has founded realtime search engine Sency and intends to move and base the company in Rittenhouse Square.

After the jump, now Boston is talking about the growth of their startup scene, Lockheed Martin invests in wave-energy and nearly 10 more tech stories you should see, including our best read piece of the week.

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Friday Tech Links: Philly tax criticism, Webby awards and more

Read about what's going on here after the jump.

In which we link out to the tech news from Philly and elsewhere (when it matters) that slips through the cracks and make it way fun. See others here.

Philadelphians are the highest taxed people in the United States. So says eminent Philadelphia Daily News legacy columnist John Baer.

That’s enough to crack any red-blooded American’s Liberty Bell. 

In a column, Baer was railing against Mayor Nutter’s calls to Harrisburg for legislative authority to hike the city’s sales tax from seven to eight percent. The story actually has a good dialogue in the comments section, too — a rarity for Philly.com.

The topic came up elsewhere this week.

Joe Distefano, the Inquirer’s top bearded business columnist, wrote an absolute must read on Nutter’s stalling of and his administration’s subsequent rethinking of continuing the move to eradicating the city’s two-pronged business privilege tax. 

By no account should you think this is strictly a Philly problem these days.

Fast Eddie Rendell said this past week that if he was forced to push for a hike in the state’s income tax, he would vie for it to return to its normal state three years later, according to reporting from foxy Inquirer state capital correspondent Angela “It’s Greek”  Couloumbis.

After the jump, why ET is with a Philly cop above, why 600 people paid $500 to be in Delaware and more than five other itches you need scratched, including our best read story of the week.

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Friday Tech Roundup: Cell phone driving ban, Police brutality spread on social media and More

In which we link out to the tech news from Philly and elsewhere (when it matters) that slips through the cracks and make it way fun. See others here.

• The Philadelphia Business Journal reports that the city’s cell phone ban is for real now. After passing City Council last week, it seemed doomed from statewide angst for a municipality creating a varying driving standard. It seems some state funding is still in danger because of the move.

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Could Philly increase the city sales tax?

Photo by Christopher Wink

The City of Philadelphia is on, like, round eight or something on budget cuts.

There was the $1 billion budget deficit for fiscal year 2009 that Mayor Michael Nutter introduced in November. Oh yeah, and there is another $1 billion shortfall looming for next year and spread for the next five years, Nutter says. He says the city needs to cut spending by $200 million.

That, you know, or we could raising the local sales tax rate.

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