Date: Wed, 26 Feb 2020 09:22:17 -0500
From: Linda Bienvenue
Subject: Taxes, taxes, taxes
Virginia, Virginia,
It appears from your post that there is no tax that is a bad tax. It is also obvious that you have never owned real estate either judging by your lauding of the LTT (Land Transfer Tax). Who do you think that hurt the most? Why – the very people you claim you want to help – people looking for affordable homes! When you tax a product so much, the price of the product necessarily increases because the producer/owner of that product sees their profit margin dwindle. Yes, Virginia – people do want to make money from what they produce and sell. They do have to live, as well as pay their workers for producing the product.
It isn’t a partisan thing, it is a common sense thing. We all want to be able to purchase products at an affordable price. Even local merchants want consumers to be able to purchase their wares.
And, just curious, what “quality of life” as you say, will this additional tax give us? The counties you give as examples are some of the poorest in NC. I am sure they appreciate the increase in taxes, except most don’t pay the taxes.
So, stop hawking the “divide” and the name-calling, and open the little door in your brain that stores common sense for everyone. The hinges might be rusty, but you will be glad you did.
Linda Bienvenue
Pittsboro
Date: Tue, 25 Feb 2020 19:00:44 -0500
From: virginia penley
Subject: RE: Revenue Options
I am just a simple woman who can occasionally see through the fog and notice that the local CCGOP has not supported any referendum over the decades that would bring revenue to our county and enhance our quality of life.
They blocked the Land Transfer Tax (LTT) in 2007 and refuse to take responsibility for shorting the county of over twenty-seven million dollars in revenue since 2008.
They never officially supported Liquor-by-the-Drink, which has created a lot of jobs, provided sales tax revenue to the municipalities and the county and provides extra revenue to the municipalities and county from the local ABC system.
Now, like an aggravating kidney stone, they stubbornly oppose the sales tax revenue referendum that will partially fill in for the budget hole they created by killing the Land Transfer Tax in 2007 .
Like flat earth proponents they are consistent, but at what cost to the social contract?
They ignore the fact that a Land Transfer Tax would have been a mechanism for a dozen years of growth to have helped pay for itself.
Indeed, if the LTT was such a lousy idea why does it seem to work for the seven counties in North Carolina that levy a local excise tax on the transfer of real estate: Perquimans, Camden, Chowan, Currituck, Dare, Pasquotank, and Washington County?
They whistle past the graveyard of their impotence on Liquor-by-the-Drink, while gladly hoisting a cocktail to celebrate the swollen Chatham County GOP coffers that benefitted from their indicted (and likely to be convicted) mega donor, Greg Lindberg and their former local chairman John Palermo.
Now they oppose another measure that will merely even us up with Harnett, Lee and Moore counties and thus provide revenue that we would have had twelve (12) years ago.
I just do not see how twenty-five cents on a hundred dollar purchase is going to break the bank and if in the aggregate we get more help for water quality, local farmers, affordable housing and local schools I am all in.
Vote YES to the sales tax referendum on March 3rd.
—Virginia Penley