IT IS A COMMON tale: Some special interest gets tired of paying its share of taxes, and so goes to the State House arguing that the burden is unfairly high, or threatens to hurt the economy or something of the sort. Generally, the special tax break sought is small enough that most taxpayers wouldn’t notice the extra taxes they’ll have to pay to make up the difference. And so the special tax break slides through the Legislature with little notice and less protest.

This time, the beneficiaries of legislative largesse are the owners of golf courses — and particularly golf courses along the coast and in high-rent districts statewide. Their argument, which the House is to consider Wednesday, is that counties are overvaluing their property, thus making them pay more than their fair share of property taxes. And that, they say, will eventually damage to the economy, since golf courses are a big part of South Carolina’s tourism industry, and too-high taxes could force some golf courses out of business.

It sounds reasonable. And it may well be.

But legislators haven’t been offered any evidence that it’s a reasonable argument. As “evidence” that they’re paying too much in property taxes, golf course owners point to several valuations that have been lowered on appeal. There are two obvious problems with using that argument. First, it tells us nothing about how accurate the assessments were on all the other golf courses; in other words, these could be rare exceptions, for which we generally do not make laws. More significantly, the valuations and thus the tax bills for those golf courses have been lowered — just as countless homeowners and vehicle owners have their property valuations and tax bills lowered every year as a result of their own appeals. In other words, any problem that exists is already being cured by the system in place.

Such logic, of course, means little when a determined special interest with good ties to legislators goes looking for breaks. And so House leaders want to decree that henceforth, the value of golf course property, for tax purposes, shall be $500 per acre plus a fraction of the course’s gross proceeds.

We would not have a problem with setting a standard method for determining the value of golf course property — if anyone could demonstrate that there were an actual problem with the various methods county assessors currently use. But in addition to the lack of such a demonstration, this special new law isn’t an attempt to find the best way to put an accurate value on golf courses. It is, pure and simple, an attempt to lower the tax bills for golf courses. State officials project that if this bill becomes law, golf course owners will get a $7.8 million tax cut — while homeowners pay an extra $1.2 million a year, car owners an extra $1.4 million and manufacturers an extra $1.3 million.

The biggest problem with this bill, though, is that this is such a common tale: Every year, the Legislature grants more of these special little tax breaks for special groups, the cumulative effect of which is higher taxes for everybody else and a tax code that is increasingly defined not by its whole but by its exceptions. That’s unfair to the people who can’t afford to buy good connections with legislators, and it’s a perfect recipe for further fiscal turmoil, as every new exemption renders the tax system less able to collect the money it takes to provide the basic services our state demands.