The bill, which is co-sponsored by Sen. Scott Richardson, R-Hilton Head Island, would require all South Carolina counties to use a standard formula for determining the value of public golf courses.

Under the current system, counties can use several methods for determining the value of public golf courses. Beaufort County's method sets the value much higher than would be permitted under the Senate bill.

Richardson and other advocates of the bill say it would give much-needed tax relief to golf courses and standardize complicated rules that have resulted in long and expensive appeals, such as one Sea Pines Co. filed in 1998 that took four years to settle. But critics say the bill saps government coffers in already lean times, shifts the tax burden to other properties and opens the door for hotels and other big businesses to demand similarly lowered taxes.

There are about 50 public and private golf courses in southern Beaufort County.

At the heart of the disagreement is the charge by golf course owners that the system used by counties to assess property is too complicated and inconsistent.

State law now requires only that counties base their appraisals on "fair market value," a description that allows counties to use one of three methods recommended by the nonprofit Appraisal Institute.

The first method is to add together the values of the various parts of a golf course. The second bases the value on recent sales of comparable property. The third bases the value on net income, or total income minus expenses.

Bernice Wright, Beaufort County's assessor, says the county asks golf courses and other businesses for their income when reassessing property. But few respond, she said, and as a result the county assesses most courses by adding together the value of the undeveloped golf course land, the value of the course's buildings and the cost of constructing the course.

But even when businesses do provide their income, there often are disagreements about how it should be calculated, Wright said.

Under the original Senate bill, the value of a golf course would be determined through several steps. First, each acre would be valued at $500. Then the golf course's gross income would be multiplied by a factor of 1.1. Those two numbers added together would equal the value of the course. For instance, a 100-acre course that brings in $5 million a year would be valued at $5.05 million.

Rip Rose, a lawyer representing several golf courses who has been lobbying the General Assembly, said the bill already had been amended to multiply income by a factor of 1.2 and said the final formula still is being discussed.

The bill also would define income as all gross revenue except refundable deposits.

Several years ago, the state began requiring counties to assess private golf courses using a similar method. Under the private golf course rules, an assessor can choose whether to charge based on gross income or $500 an acre, whichever is greater.

Wright said the Senate bill would give the county's public golf courses a major tax break.

For instance, if the bill had been enacted in 1998, the George Fazio Golf Course in Palmetto Dunes would have gone from paying $105,930 in county property taxes to $35,932, Wright said.

"Basically they'll be moving the tax burden onto other properties," she said, adding that she has not had a chance to add up the total revenue that would be lost across the county. "Everybody else will be making up the difference."

But Terry Sedalik, executive director of the South Carolina Golf Course Owners Association, said his organization was just asking to simplify a complicated system that can result in years of appeals.

He said courses in other parts of the state are having to borrow money to cover their property taxes. But he said in Beaufort County, the main issue is clarifying the system "to keep golf course owners from having to keep a CPA and attorney on retainer for every time we need to challenge" reassessed property values.

Such a situation developed on Hilton Head in 1998, the last time the county reassessed properties countywide.

The county valued the three golf courses owned by the Sea Pines Co. at $35 million, but the company appealed the assessment. The company asked the county to assess its courses based on their income, contending the value was $11 million.

But Sea Pines and the county could not agree on how to calculate the income, and the company filed a lawsuit.

In summer 2002, an administrative law judge set the value of the courses at $21 million.

Sedalik said such costly and complicated lawsuits "are killing the goose that laid the golden egg" in a time when golf course business and tourism in general has been down.

Several assessors, including Wright, met with Sedalik, Rose and other golf course supporters Monday, reaching no agreement but having discussed their concerns, Sedalik and Wright said.

Wright said the reassessment system should not change, adding that other businesses could be next in line for tax cuts.

"They already got this done for private golf courses, now they want it for public ones?" she said. "Who's next? The hotel and motel associations? Where does it stop?"