COLUMBIA, S.C. - As lawmakers discuss
strategies for reforming property taxes, homeowners are getting
together to convince them to end the system of using land values to
fund local schools.
Most opposition comes from homeowners who worry about getting
taxed out of homes they have owned for years. The taxes go up as
property values increase, but they say, their incomes don't keep up
with the higher taxes.
"I call it an all-out war on the reassessment system," said Sen.
David Thomas, R-Greenville. "There's a level of tolerance, and it's
at the breaking point."
Others take an ideological stance that tax growth is caused by
too much government.
Legislative leaders say change isn't going to come easily.
"What you are talking about doing is altering how government is
financed," said House Speaker Bobby Harrell, R-Charleston. "It's one
of the biggest issues that's been talked about in all my (12) years
in the House."
The state regulates property taxes - the main source of local
school funding - but counties and districts set the rates and
collect the taxes. About 60 percent of the typical property tax bill
goes to pay for schools.
Don Bowen is one of the many in South Carolina who are voicing
their worries about increasing taxes.
"I'm able to pay the $6,000 now," says Bowen, a 60-year-old
retired personnel manager who lives on the banks of Lake Hartwell in
Anderson County. "But down the road, if taxes keep going up, there's
no way I'll make it."
Bowen's voice and the words of thousands like him may be able to
reach lawmakers' ears in the coming election year.
"I think everybody's political capital is on the line everybody
in the leadership to the lowest seniority member in both bodies,"
Harrell said.
Some House members met last week to discuss options to lower or
eliminate property taxes. Among them were increasing the state sales
tax, which is 5 percent statewide, and charging sales for some
previously exempt items, such as newspapers and equipment sold to
radio and TV companies.
David Whetsell, president of STOPTAX.org that formed in Lexington
County in 2004, says his group's members want residential property
taxes eliminated.
"We want to drive a stake through its heart," said Whetsell, who
has seen his property tax bill go from $700 in 1998 to about $2,000
last year.
Rep. Bill Cotty, R-Richland and head of the House property tax
subcommittee, says some in the anti-tax movement are motivated by
self-interest.
Specifically, he said he worries about property tax fixes that
could hurt public schools.
"There are elements within the anti-tax movement that want to
blame everything on the public schools," Cotty said. "Some say, 'I
want mine and to heck with everybody else.' It's good to have that
attitude out in the
open."
