COLUMBIA--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 applying the sales tax to 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."
