sales tax

Carolinas AGC is touting all the success in the past legislative session, chief among their successes being the General Assembly's failure to cap the gasoline tax.

A weekend discussion about various proposals to raise sales taxes, triggered by this email.

It seems to me that in the state's enthusiasm to increase revenue via increased sales tax, they didn't give the Department of Revenue time to get the right forms out.

Yesterday in the House Finance Committee, Minority Leader Paul "Skip" Stam tried derailing the Transit Bill H148 by referring to sales tax as an inefficient tax. He claimed that sales tax was not deductible from Federal taxes, as property tax is, and that the effect was to send 15 cents of every dollar in sales tax to the Federal Government. He exchanged words with Rep Deborah Ross, a sponsor of the bill and did not offer an amendment in committee but promised to introduce one on the House floor when the bill is considered. Mr Stam should check with the IRS first.

Among the details: Transfer tax included, top income tax rate cut included, sales tax hike made permanent and could go higher.

With the GOP in charge in the Senate, I guess this is the best we can expect...

fp by gf :)

This fact sheet on land transfer taxes from Chatham County is timely, informative, thought provoking and accurate.

So far, the General Assembly has only granted seven counties in the northeastern part of the state (Camden, Chowan, Currituck, Dare, Pasquotank, Perquimans and Washington) [the authority] to levy a land transfer tax. Only Washington County has opted not to levy the tax.

The counties without the land transfer tax must rely on property taxes, state-authorized sales taxes and other limited fees, which rarely keep pace with demands for schools, water-sewer and other important needs.

I've been puzzling over this issue and talking to people about it for a few months now. Besides getting Johnston County off of Aero-Contractors' payroll, I think this is the most pressing moral issue facing our homey little triangle satellite county. I speak about transfer taxes here in relation to Johnston, but this is truly a statewide issue as other BlueNC diarists have noted.

Why? Because ...

French poet Paul Valery once said,

"Politics is the art of preventing people from taking part in affairs which properly concern them."

We know all too well how true this is in the Federal Government. The whole “Crashing the Gate” concept is built around tearing down walls between regular citizens, our elections and our government. That, however, is not the only place we are prevented from “taking part in affairs which properly concern us.”

In no political arena is Valery's anecdote truer than in North Carolina counties where populations are multiplying, water supplies are thinning, schools are bursting at the seams and other services are either held together with duck tape and bailing wire, or held up by credit.