COLUMBIA -- The state House of Representatives this week is expected to take up a proposal that would extend the real estate transfer fee option to all municipalities in Beaufort County.

"This is a painless tax for people moving into our area," said state Rep. Bill Herbkersman, R-Bluffton, who introduced the legislation Tuesday.

Hilton Head Island is the only municipality in the state that imposes a real estate transfer fee. The approximately $3 million raised each year by the 0.25 percent tax on the sales price is used to take land out of development, either directly or by repaying debt used to buy land.

The bill as written would only apply to municipalities in Beaufort County, but would not apply to county government. The bill allows a municipality to impose a real estate transfer fee if another municipality in the same county was imposing the fee before Jan. 1, 1991. The fee would have to be approved by the Legislative Delegation of the county.

"If this passes, and the county requests it later, I may propose it," Herbkersman said.

Hilton Head adopted the fee in 1990, followed in the next few years by other local governments, including Beaufort County, the city of Beaufort, the town of Port Royal and Charleston.

After fights in the legislature and state Supreme Court, and largely because it already had financing arrangements based on its fee, Hilton Head became the only local government allowed to charge a transfer fee under the 1997 Local Government Fiscal Authority Act.

Bluffton and Beaufort County officials have said they would like to have the real estate transfer fee to help with land-buying initiatives.

But a real estate transfer fee has faced stiff opposition from real estate and home builders groups in other parts of the state.

John Cone, executive director of the Homebuilders Association of South Carolina, said his organization opposes real estate fees that supplement the general funds of municipalities and counties.

"It sounds harsh, I know, but if a council is unable to sell the taxpayers on a program, service or effort, it is inappropriate for them to find another source to squeeze that money out of," Cone said.

"And, you have the government saying 'We're going to take it out of the hide of maybe 2 percent of the population for the benefit of the 98 percent.' If you accept that in principle, things could run amok."

Cone said his lobbyists would fight Herbkersman's bill.

Beaufort County resident Bill Marscher, a Hilton Head Town Council member when the fee was passed, said, "The transfer of real estate is a good measure of growth. I know that all up and down the coast, a transfer fee would be welcomed. ... Somebody has got to stand up and say, 'Let's pass it.' "

State Sen. Scott Richardson, R-Hilton Head, said that if Herbkersman's bill makes it through the House this week, he would promote it in the Senate.

"My concern, though, is I don't want it to come up and let Hilton Head lose their fee," Richardson said.

"It's a model program, if people would only take a good look at it."