PENNSYLVANIA 2004 brings new slate of laws

Taxes on smoking, income and certain telephone calls will rise.
HARRISBURG (AP) -- The change of the calendar will usher in new laws affecting the lives of Pennsylvanians, from a potpourri of higher taxes to the expansion of the state's low-cost prescription-drug programs for senior citizens.
Under a nearly $1.2 billion tax package signed by Gov. Ed Rendell on Dec. 23, the personal income tax will rise Thursday for the first time since 1991, from 2.8 percent to 3.07 percent. The nearly 10 percent increase means a household with a taxable income of $50,000 will pay $135 a year more in state income taxes.
The package was the result of a long, hard-fought battle between Rendell and the Republican-controlled Legislature over how to raise money for new programs for school districts to improve pupil test scores and avert a deficit.
"One of the reasons I was so insistent on the [income-tax] increase was because it was the most expansive of all of the potential new revenues, and it will grow with the economy," Rendell said Monday in a year-end interview with print and radio reporters.
Additional taxes
Smokers will have to cough up more money for each pack of cigarettes they buy in the new year, because the tax package also increases the cigarette tax from $1 to $1.35 per pack. More than 70 percent of the $255 million that the tax would raise annually will go toward helping physicians pay their share of a state-run insurance fund that covers medical malpractice claims against them; the rest will go into Pennsylvania's general fund.
Certain telephone calls will also become more expensive because of a 5 percent tax to be levied on gross receipts from interstate land-line calls and cell-phone calls.
Prescription plans
But the new year also will bring new benefits to senior citizens whose incomes were previously too high for them to qualify for low-cost prescription drugs through the state's Pharmaceutical Assistance Contract for the Elderly programs.
Roughly 224,000 of the 600,000 people who are currently eligible are enrolled in the programs because many of them have other forms of drug coverage. About 100,000 more are expected to sign up under the new law.
The state department of aging will automatically issue prescription-drug program cards to about 5,000 people whose applications were rejected under the old eligibility guidelines but can be accepted under the new ones, said Tom Snedden, who runs the programs, commonly known as PACE and PACENET.
The income limits for participants in PACE, which has no deductible, will increase from $14,000 to $14,500 for individuals, and from $17,200 to $17,700 for married couples.
Income limits for PACENET, a related program for seniors with higher incomes, will change from $17,000 to $23,500 for individuals, and from $20,200 to $31,500 for couples. Also, the $500-a-year deductible participants must pay to receive the benefit will be changed to $40 per month.
As with other expansions, the department expects to have some assistance from pharmacies, doctors, legislative offices and the American Association of Retired Persons to help spread the word, Snedden said.
"We're making, I would say, an extraordinarily special push, but we're not planning immediately to do any advertising," he said.
Under a measure that lowered the legal blood-alcohol level from 0.10 to 0.08 when the bill was signed in September, increasing levels of punishment for those with the highest blood-alcohol levels will take effect Feb. 1. Repeat offenders are also subject to more severe penalties.