Then again, the idea might never get off the ground.

Last year, Berkeley County Council agreed to cut its airplane taxes by 42 percent, and Charleston County Councilman Tim Scott said he has heard that some local airplane owners have moved their planes there.

Scott said it appears there are a lot of plane owners who are paying taxes somewhere else. "We're not getting any benefit of the revenue."

However, the Berkeley County Auditor's figures show only 52 planes registered in the county as of Dec. 31, 2003, three fewer than the previous year. An official said it's too soon to judge the impact of the lower taxes on the number of plane registrations, and the taxes collected from them, until sometime next year.

In 2003, state lawmakers gave counties the discretion to lower the assessment ratio on airplanes from 10.5 percent to as low as 4 percent.

Since then, York County has lowered its assessment to 4 percent to try to attract planes that otherwise would register across the North Carolina state line in Charlotte. Earlier this year, Berkeley County reduced its assessment to 6 percent.

If the tax bill on a $100,000 airplane were currently $2,500, then reducing the assessment ratio to 6 percent would cut the bill to $1,428. Reducing the ratio all the way down to 4 percent would cut the tax bill to $952. The more expensive the plane, the more the savings.

Charleston County Assessor Mike Huggins said the county currently has 237 airplanes registered here, and the average value is about $167,000.

The owner of such a plane in unincorporated Charleston County pays $3,169 per year in taxes. The bill on the same plane in unincorporated Berkeley would be $2,276, or 28 percent less.

Greg Padgett, chief financial officer of G.F. Air, a charter airplane business, said lowering the assessment on planes obviously would benefit his company, but he said it also could help the county if it encourages owners of a few high-priced jets to register them here.

"There are a lot of companies, individuals in and around Charleston, particularly with the resorts we have with Wild Dunes, Kiawah and Seabrook," he said. "These individuals are coming in and out of Charleston with these planes and could just as easily base them here as anywhere else."Not everyone jumped at Scott's idea of lowering the tax rate to try to lure more planes. Councilman Leon Stavrinakis said the county might lose money by lowering the airplane ratio and that would cause homeowners to pay a larger share of the tax load.

"If I knew that we would (increase collections), I'd be glad to do it," Stavrinakis said.

Council is expected to seek more information from Charleston County Auditor Peggy Moseley before deciding how to proceed.

Acting chairman Curtis Bostic, who owns a small plane, said the issue is not at the top of his priorities.

While council members might not agree on reducing airplane assessments, council members did seem to agree on one point made by Stavrinakis, who said, "The airplane owners must have a good lobby in Columbia."

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