“I can be thankful that my taxes can be paid, but me and other citizens are being squeezed by this system, and that is a crying shame,” Orangeburg County resident Roger Hagwood told members of the S.C. House special committee. The panel held a public hearing Tuesday evening at Orangeburg-Calhoun Technical College. LARRY HARDY/T&D

PLEA FOR FAIRNESS -- Lawmakers told eliminating taxes on homes not enough; speakers advocate increasing sales tax

By WENDY JEFFCOAT, T&D Staff Writer

A public hearing on property tax reform conducted by a special House committee studying the state’s current system drew quite a crowd Tuesday night at Orangeburg-Calhoun Technical College.

The committee, which includes local Democratic lawmakers Rep. Gilda Cobb-Hunter of Orangeburg and Rep. Harry Ott of St. Matthews, was in town to encourage local government officials and the general public to express views on the property tax issue.

Waiting for the meeting to begin, Cordova resident Gladys Arends said she doesn’t believe it would be fair for the Legislature to support just cutting out the property taxes on private homes.

“I feel if they don’t include rental property in the tax relief, it would be double taxing me,” she said. Arends owns seven rental properties and said, “I would have to pay extra on rental property and extra sales tax. It doesn’t sound fair to me.”

Lee and Jeanette Jeffrey of Orangeburg said keeping property taxes to fund education is not right, especially when that is what the South Carolina Education Lottery was billed for in the first place. Additionally, they said the assessment on housing is unfair, something reiterated throughout the meeting, as they questioned how good the assessments are when just the outside of the home is viewed.

“I’m hoping they’ll change the way the taxes are set up and the homes are assessed,” Lee Jeffrey said. Jeanette Jeffrey added, “What happens when the state takes away the taxes? We have to take care of the county so that the county does not tax us out of our homes.”

John Rickenbacker, chairman of Orangeburg County Council, said he is excited by what the committee is attempting to do but asked that they keep in mind rural counties across the state.

“We’re trying to establish infrastructure basis here in Orangeburg County to grow economically and create wealth,” he said. “In working on your solutions — leave our penny alone. Rural counties need that penny to build infrastructure to be able to develop the kind of wealth that we know is in certain corridors of the state.

“You have a tough job.”

Rep. Thomas Rhoad, D-Bamberg, said being a farmer, he knows the hard work and sacrifice that goes into building up a home and ones property.

“They worked hard all their lives to have homes, to pay for their land. All of a sudden ... some of them are selling now to pay taxes,” he said. “Your life spent working your fingers to the bone to pay taxes. I think that is unfair. I’m for tax relief. I think it is imperative this year that we do something for tax relief. How they (my colleagues) are going to do it, I don’t know. But we have got to have relief.”

More than 130 people crowded into a lecture room at OCtech, with more than 30 of those sharing their opinions of the current property tax situation and what can be done to eliminate the burden.

“The county tax assessor and I own a residence and two vehicles,” said Roger Hagwood of Orangeburg as he addressed the panel of local representatives joined by Rep. Richard Chalk, R-Hilton Head, and Rep. Bill Cotty, R-Columbia and chairman of the ad hoc committee entrusted with the task of coming up with a property tax solution. “That’s really who owns it.

“I can be thankful that my taxes can be paid, but me and other citizens are being squeezed by this system, and that is a crying shame.”

Among solutions Hagwood suggested to those gathered is ridding the state of the cap on car sales taxes, replacing the property tax with the proposed 2 percent addition to the state sales tax and placing a freeze or rollback on current property taxes.

“This burden (school funding) that is paid for by property tax payers should be bore by all,” he said. Hagwood called the $300 tax cap on car sales “archaic and ridiculous.” He said after purchasing a $15,000 pickup and a $20,000 car, he was only billed for $600 in taxes.

“I could have paid my taxes for those vehicles, but I was only billed for $600,” Hagwood said. “That’s not right. The state lost money, the county lost money.”

Cotty said when the committee was formed by speaker of the House, Rep. Bobby Harrell, R-Charleston, just months ago, he gave its members a mission — he wanted something fair, equitable and sensible.

“It’s never fun to go out on a limb to try to change something into law, particularly something that has years and years behind it,” he said. “When Mr. Harrell took this on as speaker of the House ... his number one objective, number one issue in the House, in his opinion, meaningful tax reform, in my opinion is gutsy, and that’s what leadership’s about.

“You would have to be deaf, dumb and blind as a House member to not understand the problem with property taxes is not just in one or two or a few or a third of the counties in the state; it is every single county in the state. If it’s fair, it will jump out at people as being fair.”

Fair is what several of those in attendance kept pointing to as well, as they aimed to get the committee members in attendance to consider in their discussions eliminating not just private property taxes, but business and rental property taxes as well — just to keep things even.

“We are taxed beyond comprehension down here,” said Philip Rand, a small business owner. “Taxes should be equal. Everybody should pay their fair share. Two percent (sales tax increase) is not enough. You need to tax us at least 5 percent. But what you need to do is eliminate taxes on owner-occupied, non-owner-occupied, residential and business properties.

“We don’t mind paying our fair share ... (but) you need to be fair — business, personal, residential, rental ... do it fairly. Business owners would not mind paying more ... if they knew it was fair. Do not only residential; do businesses as well.”

Rand also supported the lifting of the car tax cap to make up for the difference in funds no longer being generated by property taxes.

“Someone who can afford to buy a $100,000 Hummer, they can afford $6,000 in taxes. If someone buys a $50,00 Cadillac, they can afford $3,000 in taxes,” he said “There’s no reason that taxes shouldn’t be equal. If they are fair, you should not have any problems.”

Ott said last year, when the Legislature debated income tax reform, that was a far cry from the real tax issue — property taxes.

“A lot of us have been talking about property tax relief for several years now,” he said. “A handful of people talk about income tax problems. It’s always property taxes. Well it seems now is the time. I think we’ve got a window of opportunity to deal with this problem.

“Everybody’s got different plans, but the art of compromise has got to take over in this thing. This isn’t going to make taxes go away. This is basically going to be a shift. The money is still going to get spent. What we have got to do is find a better way to generate the income.”

Cobb-Hunter used the three-legged stool analogy, representing income, property and sales taxes, and said, “If we change ... one of the legs of that stool, it’s going to affect something else.”

Following the meeting, she said she was pleased with the turnout and the ideas that were brought to the table.

“I thought it was really interesting,” she said. “It’s going to be a difficult job; it’s going to be a very tough job, but as I said in my closing, don’t just talk to me about reducing your taxes — talk to me about offsets. If we’re going to reduce them, how are we going to make up the money, or what service are we going to cut? What do we cut?

“I am just very humbled by this task because everybody all over the state has an idea, and our job is going to be coming up with whatever is the best plan, and i am hopefully that we can come up with something that I can support.”