Local Tax Increase
My home county is pushing for a sales tax increase:
Blount County budget officials have called for an increase in the county’s sales tax. So how much would residents have to pay? And why?
The county budget committee has called for voters to decide on a sales tax increase of half of a percent. It’s a move designed to address the nearly $8 million in additional money requested by Blount County schools for the 2004-2005 school year.
The motion for a referendum passed the budget committee Monday night.
It would raise the sales tax to the state maximum of 9.75 percent. That means if you buy $100 worth of sales taxable items, you’ll pay $9.75 in taxes.
The increase would generate an estimated $2.3 million for Blount County. All of it would go directly to the schools.
The referendum goes before the full Blount County Commission on April 15. It could appear on the ballot as early as August.
Needless to say, I’ll be voting in the Hell No column. And I encourage my fellow Blount Countians to do the same.
April 7th, 2004 at 10:06 am
9.75 is what we pay over here in Memphis, and folks are flocking to Mississippi and Arkansas to save a couple of dollars per hundred spent. I don’t understand that logic (except for big purchases) but it’s a real phenomenon. I know Mississippi folks who won’t shop at the Whitehaven Wal-Mart (due south of Memphis) because it’s too overcrowded with Memphians all the time.
April 7th, 2004 at 12:12 pm
Since you’ll be voting “Hell No,” how do you suggest the schools come up with the additional funding? A bake sale, perhaps? Or are you suggesting that the schools don’t need the money?
Not sure how it works there, or here in Memphis, but when I lived in Ohio, the schools were funded primarily by property taxes, not sales taxes. And unless the schools were badly mismanaged, the property tax levies generally passed.
April 7th, 2004 at 12:16 pm
how do you suggest the schools come up with the additional funding?
I don’t really care. School systems are notoriously inefficient and, unfortunately, teachers pay the price for it. If i was certain that they weren’t riddled with waste, i might care. But i am not.
April 8th, 2004 at 8:55 am
There will never be enough money for the school system in their opinion. Griping about money allows them to have an excuse for their own inability to educate properly. I am a fan of public schools, and wouldn’t trade my life experience in them for anything, but now that I am adult I can see the education system as a whole is overly concerned with politics and emotion rather than core curricula.