No, I'm not writing of prohibition, although it does come in a close second.
Of course, it's the idiotic property tax relief "system" put into place by the South Carolina state legislature in 2006. From now until the turkey is repealed, we will be trying to fix it and its repercussions.
See Legislature Considers Reassessment Cap in Tuesday's P&C
Sounds great, doesn't it? So great, it's hard to believe the CCSD School Board didn't create it."Business groups, real estate sellers and those who bought property after 2006 have complained loudly that the new system is unfair.
"Under the proposed legislation, only new construction would be taxed at full value, creating another subset of aggrieved taxpayers.
"The legislation also would make an estimated $44 million in annual revenue disappear from local government, county and school district budgets statewide, the Board of Economic Advisors has estimated.
"The result would be a shifting of some property taxes back to current home and business owners, constraints on the budgets of local schools and governments, or both."
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My husband and I moved here from Atlanta in 2004 and we could not believe all the whining in Charleston about high property taxes. To give you an idea, the house we bought here and the house we had in Atlanta were on the tax books at roughly the same amount. Our taxes here were less than half what we paid in Atlanta. I've since talked to other people who moved here - they also were baffled by complaints of high property taxes. Property taxes in Charleston were relatively low - there wasn't any need for this change. If we really wanted to protect older people, or poorer people, we could have higher homestead tax exemptions. I sort of suspect that's not who we ended up protecting.
As time goes forward under this new tax law things will get even more out of whack. The more complicated the formulas become to calculate all the different sets and subsets, the more befuddled the public will become. Equity and fairness will go out the window and the public will be that much more suspicious of the tax system and the people who run the local governments and boards that rely on property taxes. Nothing ensures the public's distrust of government than a tax structure that is hard to understand or is obviously inequitable and unfair.
There may be a cap on property values used for calculating individual taxes, but until there is a cap on tax millage rates levied by local boards and councils there will be no cap on the taxes they can charge.
Our local school board has made a mockery of the property tax system for years. On the recommendations of staff alone, the school board has votes to roll back millage rates after a county-wide reassessment only half as much as other local governments. School district officials, who advise the board, do this knowingly. Some would call this kind of back door tax increase a form of willful theft by deception.
Following each of the last two county-wide reassessments CCSD’s accountants have successfully presented in their budgets huge but also hidden tax increases. These were offered as a partial millage “roll back” against a greatly increased tax base. This type of bait and switch deception by school district officials has been made much easier because of the increasing complexity of the tax system.
Whatever happened to the K.I.S.S. method? (Keep It Simple, Stupid!)
Like Burr Rabbit in the brier patch, our school district officials decried property tax reform when it became law in 2007. Now the rest of us have realized the unintended consequences of this bad legislation, Burr Rabbit is content with leaving their windfall and the taxpayers’ loss just the way it is.
It would have been nice if an objective outsider (i.e. someone answerable to the public and not employed by the school district) could pass judgment on the school board's budget each year. This should happen before the school board is allowed to unload it on the rest of us who are given almost no consideration during the budget hearing process. By state statute most counties in SC require school board budgets, or at least the proposed millage rates, to be reviewed by their county auditors and given final approval by county council before the school budgets can become law.
The special legislation that created CCSD has all but eliminated this type of public review process. Most other communities in SC have far more checks and balances involving their school board budgets than Charleston County. Most other communities in SC also have more efficient and successful public school systems.
These should be no wonder why most of the push for the recent state wide "tax reform" came from Charleston County. Now the rest of South Carolina is paying for the gross mistakes made years ago with the special legislation that gave CCSD almost total control of its own budget and taxing authority. The abuses it has imposed on Charleston County taxpayers have now been extended to the rest of South Carolina.
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