Want a classic illustration of why the property tax is such a dicey way to raise money for local government services and public schools? Look no further than Horry County Council's decision this week to defer countywide property-tax reassessment until next year.

This decision hurts folks whose property values haven't risen much since the last reassessment in 1999. For one more year, they will retain about $4 million in property-tax burden that should have been transferred to folks whose property values have risen dramatically. But legislative meddling and a likely S.C. Supreme Court carpet-bombing of the method many local governments use to recalculate their tax rates after a reassessment left County Council no other choice.

Problem one is a bad bill that resides on the desk of Gov. Mark Sanford, who should veto it but may not because a lot of well-off South Carolinians want it to become law. The measure would allow their assessed property values to rise no more than 20 percent per five years, giving owners of high-end properties a cumulative tax break that all other property owners will finance.

If County Council had adopted a budget based on this year's reassessments - many of which went up much more than 20 percent - and Sanford signed the tax-cap bill or let it become law without his signature, the county's tax collections and spending plans would have been plunged into chaos.

The second wasp in the county's tax ointment is an expected Supreme Court ruling that the city of Myrtle Beach gave itself an undeserved tax increase when calculating its property-tax rate rollback after the 1999 reassessment. Under state law, local governments aren't supposed to receive windfalls from reassessments. As property values rise, they must reduce their mill levies in like proportion.

But what, exactly, is like proportion? S.C. law appears to require local governments to recalculate their mill levies based on the values of 100 percent of the taxable properties in their jurisdictions. But many S.C. local governments project - accurately - that fewer than 100 percent of taxpayers will actually pay their taxes. So to keep the same amount of money coming in that they're already getting, they base their tax-rate recalculations on the assumption that a smaller percentage of property owners - 86 percent in Myrtle Beach's case - will actually pay their taxes. As a result, the mill levy goes down less than it theoretically should.

Former county administrator Linda Angus sued to overturn the city's use of this practice, arguing that it forces the folks who pay their taxes to cover the city's losses from folks who don't. This, she said, amounts to a back-door tax-rate increase. In a hearing in the case this month, a majority of the S.C. justices appeared to agree with Angus, rebuking the city for this practice. Because County Council (among many other governments) uses this same method for recalculating its tax rate, council members were wise to delay reassessment until the high court rules in the Angus case.

If the Supreme Court abolishes this practice, local councils and emancipated school boards all over the state would be forced to hold public hearings to explain why they're enacting effective tax-rate increases to keep the same amount of tax dollars they're already getting - a lose-lose situation for local elected officials if ever there was one.

Readers can decide for themselves whether this tax-recalculation practice amounts to local government chicanery, as Angus implies. What strikes us from all this is how amazing it is that good people continue to serve on local councils and school boards despite the revenue roadblocks they encounter in trying to please voters and taxpayers.