Tax shift: Local governments putting hardships on citizens, businesses via property taxes

Should you be renting your house from your local government and school board? With the unbelievable escalation in local taxes, that is what almost all homeowners in South Carolina are doing.

Should your automobile taxes be higher than your home taxes? Far too many South Carolinians are paying more in personal property taxes than they are paying in real property taxes.

Should a business in South Carolina be able to plan what its property tax expenses are rather than get hit with a surprise 25 percent to 50 percent increase after every reassessment? Again, while our state government has been cutting back for the past five years, our local governments have been crucifying their citizens and businesses with extraordinarily higher taxes.

As your state elected officials, we have been working very hard to reduce your taxes over the past 10 years. We are dismayed to see our work has been rapidly eaten away by excessive local government spending. We are even more dismayed to see that your real and personal property taxes are becoming so high that you actually have to sell your homes and buy used cars just to survive. There is little doubt that this is not the kind of government our Founding Fathers envisioned. Is this what we get with home rule?

I am all for home rule. But I am also for some constitutional protections against excessive local taxation. Otherwise, exactly what is happening now will continue to get worse. We will get taxed right out of house and home. In the 1970s, California had the same problem, and the people said enough. They voted in a constitutional amendment called Proposition 13 and solved the problem once and for all.

Last year, I filed Proposition 13 as South Carolina Senate bill 13. It is still sitting on the Senate calendar. If you have had enough, start asking your representatives and senators to take up Senate bill 13.

I do not believe, however, that Proposition 13 goes far enough. That is why I am co-sponsoring a bill with Sen. David Thomas of Greenville and Sen. Arthur Ravenel of Mt. Pleasant to actually eliminate property tax on homes and automobiles in South Carolina. The bill also freezes property tax on all other real property in South Carolina (including commercial, farm, rental and second home property).

The bill is a constitutional amendment so that these taxes can never come back or be raised without another constitutional amendment. The bill also is a constitutional amendment so that you can vote on it.

Why is this bill better? Because it is not right to heavily tax something that does not make income. A tax on homes and automobiles is a tax on life's necessities. They are assets that do not produce any income to pay the tax. That is why some older and retired people are literally having to sell their homes that they worked a lifetime to live in. They live on fixed incomes, and property value re-assessments are forcing them to sell their homes. Why should any of us have to rent our homes and automobiles from the government for our whole lives?

There is a better alternative. We can raise the sales tax 2 percent and eliminate the property tax on owner-occupied homes and on all automobiles, as well as freeze property tax on all other real property at today's tax amount. No gimmicks, no slight of hand. It's that simple, if we don't try to complicate it. The 2-cent sales tax increase would cover local government and school boards for the amount they receive from property tax right now and would increase every year as spending goes up. Our bill dedicates every penny from the tax increase to the local schools and municipalities.

Why is this better for everyone? Because everyone pays sales tax, and everyone pays in proportion to their income level. The less money you have, the less you spend and the less sales tax you pay. What can be more fair than that?

What about those in truly impoverished neighborhoods? Believe it or not, these folks are asking for the property tax reform the most. Gentrification is driving up property values to shockingly high levels. Thousands of families that have been living on the same property for over 100 years are all of a sudden being forced to sell their homes just to pay the new property taxes resulting from constant reassessment.

The best part of a sales tax increase in South Carolina is that our tourists will pay an estimated 25 percent of the additional tax. That is a 25 percent tax decrease to our citizenry if we eliminate home and auto taxes and freeze business property taxes.

We need our tourists, but they need to pay their fair share, too. They come to look at our beautiful property -- be it mountains, marshes, beaches or houses. To preserve these vistas and properties takes money. Our tourists will be happy to pay a little bit more to help us preserve these things that they come to see and that we all enjoy.

Most of us know that we desperately need property tax reform in South Carolina. Now it is up to you to ask your senators and representatives to pass this bill. I have been doing everything I can to make it happen and will continue to do so.

John Kuhn of Charleston is a member of the S.C. Senate.

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