Mecklenburg Tax Increase Likely

[Raintree21]

Double-digit tax hike likely to pass, commissioners say

Mecklenburg County commissioners will likely approve a double-digit tax increase as part of the county budget next week, commissioners said.

[Raintree21]

Mecklenburg residents pay more taxes, fees than other NC counties

County Taxes and Fees Per Capita

Year Mecklenburg Guilford Wake

2003 $1,064 $692 $772

2002 1,041 674 746

2001 928 636 749

2000 904 618 696

1999 788 604 616

County Taxes and Fees as Percentage of Income

Year Mecklenburg Guilford Wake

2003 2.72 2.22 2.17

2002 2.7 2.16 2.1

2001 2.45 2.06 2.07

2000 2.43 2.01 1.93

1999 2.25 2.05 1.84

[Raintree21]

No tax increase for the city, but the county commissioners approved a 10.6% increase tonight in taxes.

County Tax Increase

[dubone]

how disappointing.

i think i wanted the city increase, as it would have gone to important transportation and arts projects... but the county raises just support the bloated overhead for the school district and a few other things that aren't very interesting.

sigh.

[monsoon]

Agreed. CMS is sucking huge amounts of money out of the hides of the taxpayers and failing at what they are doing. Got to wonder why the local politicans don't want it broken up.

[atlrvr]

The worst part about the county raising and the city not is that is also shifts sales tax revenues to the county.....so not only is the county getting more property tax dollars, they are also getting additional sales tax dollars that would have gone to the city (and the city is getting less than before)

[monsoon]

I'm not sure I understand the linkage between the property tax rate and the sales tax. Can you explain?

[atlrvr]

Sure.......all sales tax is originally sent to the state by each retailer. The state then keeps a cut and administrative fee, and returns the tax back to the COUNTY of collection. It is then up to the county to distribute that money to themselves and the munipalities within.

Here in Mecklenburg, it is distributed based on the share of Ad Valorem collections (which is essentially the combination of personal and property taxes). This means, if Mint Hill collected 1% of the total Ad Valorem taxes in the county, they would get 1% of the sales tax returns (This of course excluded the 1/2 cent transit tax which goes to Charlotte)

Since Mecklenburg also collects Ad Valorem taxes, they also get a share of the sales tax revenues.

SO......if Mecklenburg raises its property tax rate, it increases it's share of the total Ad Valorem collection in the county, and diminishes each of the municipalities' share.....therefore skewing the distribution to sales tax to the county and away from everyone else (unless of course a munipality raises their rate at a greater % than the county)

THAT WAS VERY CONFUSING.....but it's how we do it here. If I wasn't clear, then I can try again.

[dubone]

yeah, that is how it works. there was some discussion about that when the city was first looking to raise its taxes. if they had kept up with the county's raises, not only would they have that money, but they'd have a higher percentage of sales taxes, too.

it is a huge shame, too, as city projects are, in my opinion, get much more return on investment. County responsibilities are important... but are more basic needs than investments. And basic needs are easy to overspend on.

"it is for the kids"... too bad that having thousands of employees in downtown charlotte working for the school system does zero "for the kids". Teachers, books, and classrooms near homes does the job... but those are fairly low on cms's spending priorities. example, they spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on expensive software that connects electronically, but they still make teacher send paper bubble sheets downtown, where someone scans them all, rather than simply upload the grades from the computer. They also spend money on monitors for the xerox machines to "save paper", but once installed, the xerox machines no longer print two-sided... so twice as much paper is used. They also don't have money for new toner cartridges, so when printers run out of ink, they buy new printers. They also control the heat and a/c from downtown, and once they switch from heat to a/c, there is no turning back, so it could be 75 outside and the heat could be on, or 60 outside and the a/c is on... CMS is so wasteful, it is sick.

[Sabaidee]

Agreed.  CMS is sucking huge amounts of money out of the hides of the taxpayers and failing at what they are doing.  Got to wonder why the local politicans don't want it broken up.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

I think that most politicians and the school board members know that CMS has a vast changing demographic and they do not want to break it up because it will not benefit the students and their parents 10 to 20 years from now. After bussing was over in Charlotte, all the schools demographic changed greatly. CMS is begining to see its share of white predominate white schools decreased with increases in black and minority predominate schools. CMS's racial distribution projected in 2030 that 75% of the students will be black (It is now 44% Black and 43% White). Just like with the bussing lawsuit, the man who started it all left Charlotte and moved to California before the case was appealed. Those who wanted to split CMS up are majority white parents, but what to say that Hopewell will maintain its demographic. North Meck, South Meck and Providence are probably the only main predominately white high schools left. West Charlotte, Waddell, Garinger, Olympic are the main predominately black schools. All the other high schools are fairly balanced as of right now. If CMS was to split up now it would only benefit the suburbs now, but 10 to 20 years from now, the suburbs demographics will change.

[monsoon]

Thanks for the information atlrvr. I had no idea it worked that way. Do you know if this includes the special taxes as well such as the hotel/motel tax?

[atlrvr]

The hotel tax is returned to the county of collection, who keeps a 3% portion of this returned money. Then money is distributed to municipalities so that every town besides Charlotte gets 120% of their share of the revenues (based on their initial hotel tax collections), and Charlotte gets less than 100% (whatever that ends up being after the other towns get their share)......if the money is collected in an unicorporated portion of Meck, I have no idea who gets the money, but I would assume Meck Co. does using the same forumla as Charlotte.....or it might possibly be split among each town based on some factor (Ad Valorem?).