Date: Tue, 4 Feb 2020 17:20:39 -0500
From: Linda Bienvenue
Subject: Chatham County’s tax increase
I would like to respond to the following statements by Tarus Balog below. My responses are after his statements.
Date: Mon, 3 Feb 2020 11:58:06 -0500
From: Tarus Balog
Subject: Proposed Sales Tax Increase
Gang:
Taxed enough taxpayers
It was on the Chatlist that I first heard about the proposed sales tax increase and now I’ve seen a bunch of “Vote No” signs popping up around town (it looks like they are sponsored by the Chatham County GOP).
And you think it’s the GOP – why? Just trying to figure out what that has to do with anything.
I am eager to hear why this is such a bad idea. I don’t know of anyone who likes to pay taxes but in order to have a government you have to pay for it somehow, and no matter what method you use you can consider it to be a tax.
We do pay for it already with mucho taxes everywhere you look: food tax, clothing tax, gas tax, services tax, property tax, and on and on …
At the moment I can think of three main types of taxes: property, income and sales. All three have pluses and minuses, but I kind of prefer the sales tax since it taxes consumption: i.e. those people who consume more things pay more tax. Seems the most fair.
I agree that a consumption tax is the most “fair”, since most (not all) people would be paying it.
The NC State sales tax rate is 4.75% and counties add anywhere from 2% to 2.75% on top of that, for a sales tax range of 6.75% to 7.5%.[1]
Currently, these are the rates for Chatham and surrounding counties:
Chatham: 6.75%
Alamance: 6.75%
Orange: 7.5%
Durham: 7.5%
Wake: 7.25%
Harnett: 7.0%
Lee: 7.0%
Moore: 7.0%
Randolph: 7.0%
Raising the sales tax to 7% would bring our county much more in line with our neighbors and shouldn’t negatively impact sales in the area.
Why exactly, would you feel the need to “bring our county much more in line with our neighbors”? We are not Chapel Hill, Durham, Raleigh or Cary. Why stop there? How about California?
Our food prices are already very high in NC, and there is really no place to shop in Chatham County anyway, so the increase collected would be minimal.
Just to put it in perspective, that 0.25% increase is equivalent to a quarter for every $100 spent. I’ve seen people walk by a quarter on the ground in the Food Lion parking lot and not bother to pick it up (I am not one of those people [grin]).
So, you wish to take “someone else’s quarter” and pay it as your part of the tax increase? Seems like that is already being done.
I’m just curious as to why this is such a big deal. Seems to be low impact to individuals, high value to the county, and as far as taxes go, pretty fair.
The “big deal” as you call it, is that property owners are already in line to get an increase in their property taxes due to revaluations. This other increase will be in addition to that. Also, since the County Commissioners have not really explained what the increase is “needed for”, where do you suppose it will be going?
Linda B
Pittsboro