Links: Oil-based rent, NFL cheerleader turned NASA engineer and more

DEFINITE READS

• Philly Eco City reports that Mount Airy-based electric bicycle shop Philly Electric Wheels has pegged its store rent to the percentage price increases of a barrel of oil.

MIGHT BE OF INTEREST

• Science Cheerleader has a Q&A with a former Houston Texans cheerleader turned NASA aerospace engineer.
• Science Cheerleader also gives four (sort of) science-related mobile applications she likes — from mass body index to UV calculations.
• The Inquirer’s Joe DiStefano reports that Exton-based insurance-software developer iPipeline has seen sales jump sixfold since an $18 million investment two years ago.

GIVE A GLANCE

• Holly Otterbein Isiah Thompson at the CityPaper notes that Philadelphia Police Commissioner Charles Ramsey has long had a blog — he just hasn’t posted anything on it.
• The Philadelphia Business Journal reports that the city’s tax amnesty program brought in $60 million, more than double what the city gave as its goal.
• The Business Journal also reports that Lockheed Martin announced the $24 million expansion of its Newtown operations in Bucks County.

Every Friday morning, we make sure you didn t miss anything with Friday Tech Links.

Researcher Paul J. Mathison explains governor’s proposal to tax computer professionals

We couldn’t quite believe it when Paul J. Mathison, founder of research firm pjmathison, told us that the Governor was planning to begin taxing computer service professionals for their work.

We understood the reasoning; the budget shortfall statewide, like here in Philadelphia, has called for drastic measures. But what surprised us most was that we hadn’t heard a thing about it.

Included in the Governor’s fiscal year 2011 budget is a proposal to drop the state sales tax from 6 to 4 percent while broadening the tax base to include other professionals currently exempt. Like computer service professionals.

And while we’ve seen coverage of the issue, after the fact, in Pittsburgh, and according to Mathison, a growing interest from technology stakeholders across the state, little has been done here in Philadelphia.

After the jump, we ask Mathison for the details on the proposed tax hike and what technology groups can do to fight it.

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Down with Pennsylvania’s tech tax!

In an informal partnership with Philadelphia magazine‘s new Philly Post daily news blog, Technically Philly will be offering our insight on Philadelphia technology to a broader audience of tech-interested individuals every Tuesday. As is true of so much of our effort, this is yet another opportunity to voice the triumphs and concerns of the community to a broader audience in the city and beyond.

Pennsylvania lawmakers sounded a warning bell last week, predicting a $1 billion deficit if taxes aren’t increased or significant spending cuts executed. And for the first time in close to two decades, computer services professionals are being looked to to help bridge the gap.

Governor Rendell’s proposed 2011 budget includes plans to broaden the tax base to 74 goods and services not currently taxable under the state sales tax, including computing and information technology work.

Call it history repeating itself.

In 1991, with an expected hole in the budget, Governor Casey looked to extend the sales tax to additional professional services, including computer services. Paul J. Mathison, who has analyzed state budgets and their impact on technology for close to two decades, remembers it well.

Read more at Philadelphia magazine’s Philly Post.

David L. Cohen, Comcast Executive Vice President, talks Comcast, taxes and startups

David L. Cohen doesn’t run Comcast.

He didn’t run the Rendell mayoral administration either, and he doesn’t run the University of Pennsylvania or the Greater Philadelphia Chamber of Commerce, nor does he have any of the titles that put him as the figurehead of any of the organizations that his fingerprints are on.

But he’s always in the conversations.

The Comcast Executive Vice President who spent much of the early 1990s as Ed Rendell’s mayoral chief of staff — as immortalized by Buzz Bissinger’s noted book ‘A Prayer for the City‘ — and before it had a private law career is as well-connected as they come.

So, Cohen, who is also the chairman of both the Greater Philadelphia Chamber of Commerce and the University of Pennsylvania, has a unique vantage point on the region’s technology, political and cultural vanguard. Below, Cohen talks to Technically Philly about bolstering college graduate retention, the true affects of the NBC deal and why that purchase has something to do with Vietnam.

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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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