House and Senate leaders threw caution and responsibility to the wind and approved a radical property tax cut scheme that will primarily benefit wealthy homeowners while most likely raising taxes on low-income South Carolinians. The measure takes school operating taxes off homeowners' shoulders and raises the state sales tax to 6 cents on the dollar.

The plan would wipe out about two-thirds of property taxes on an owner-occupied home. The overwhelming majority of more than $700 million in property tax relief would go to people who own pricey homes. Renters and owners of modest homes -- those priced at $90,000 or less -- would receive very little or nothing in property tax relief. But they'll pay more in sales taxes, a regressive tax that produces a greater burden for low-income South Carolinians. Businesses also are likely to pay a higher share of future property taxes.

The plan lowers the sales tax on groceries by 2 cents on the dollar, which will help all South Carolinians. But that's very little or no relief for low-income South Carolinians who'll be paying 1 cent more on the dollar in sales taxes on all other items.

The House-Senate conference committee plan was scratched out on a greasy chicken takeout box -- a perfect symbol for how seriously lawmakers have studied this issue. Six lawmakers crafted this latest property tax plan during a lunch break. The rush to approve property tax relief this year seems motivated by election-year politics, not by fairness or a sober consideration of how to provide stable funding for vital needs such as public education.

Advertisement

The plan undermines local control of schools. If a community's locally elected trustees want to raise taxes for defensible reasons -- higher teacher pay, smaller classes or merely to keep up with growth or state mandates -- their hands likely will be tied by this tax plan. Money for local school operations will be doled out from Columbia based on formulas that have yet to be determined.

In addition, the plan will reward taxpayers in spendthrift counties while penalizing more fiscally conservative counties. Communities that have voted to tax themselves heavily -- such as Lexington and Richland counties -- will benefit handsomely from the tax plan. Fiscally conservative counties that have held the line on taxes, such as Greenville County, will enjoy less tax relief. As in the 1995 property tax measure, many Greenville County legislators have in effect voted to send more money outside the county.

Some people, such as seniors, may need a lighter property tax burden. But the conference committee plan is far too broad, undermining local control of schools and shifting the tax burden from wealthy homeowners to everyone else. The full General Assembly should not accept this unfair and ill-considered tax plan.