INC NEWS - County Tax Flexibility

[pat carstensen]

I attended the hearing last night on the possibility of increasing the sales 
tax or the land transfer tax to relieve some need for property taxes.  About 
30 people spoke, some against the sales tax, some against the transfer tax 
(tho it looks like the real estate folks will wait to get people out in 2 
weeks when the commissioners actually vote), some for the transfer tax, some 
asking to just let the people vote (very eloquent from Barry Ragin, for 
example), some asking for money for the arts (personally, I think that a 
transfer tax should be seen as a down-payment on infrastructure and 
appropriately limited), and a few "members of the Leprechaun Cult" (those 
who believe there is a pot of gold somewhere and if elected officials would 
just do their job, they would find that pot of gold and we could all save on 
taxes (-:)

Anyhow, a couple key pieces of info:
* The sales tax would on be on food
* The land transfer tax would be equivalent to 4.32 cents in property tax
* The sales tax would be equivalent to 3.66 cents in property tax
* A full presentation is on www.durhamcountync.gov (a pdf file, at top of 
page, "Commissioners host Public Hearing on August 13th at 7pm to consider 
whether to increase Sales Tax or Land Transfer Tax [PDF]"
* Although it sounds like the Board of County Commissioners would like to 
build in exceptions, the General Assembly doesn't allow it (basically, the 
law says the only exceptions are transfers that aren't sales, like 
bequests).  I suppose they could choose to make some rebates (for renovating 
historical property or for the tax on the first $25K of the value of the 
property)

Personally, I think the way to handle the argument that senior citizens have 
paid property tax for years and would end up "double paying" if they sell 
their house now would be to phase in the land transfer tax so the 
accumulated property tax savings more closely matches the transfer tax paid.

The commissioners are getting lots of calls and e-mails and were 
appreciative of the high quality of the comments they are getting.  If you 
want to add your voice:

Ellen Reckhow      ereckhow at aol.com
Becky Heron         beckymheron at nc.rr.com
Phil Cousin           prcousin at earthlink.net
Lewis Cheek         lcheek at durhamcouuntync.gov
Michael Page        mpage at durhamcountync.gov


Regards, pat

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