Folks, no matter whether this sneaky sales tax increase passes or not (I recommend voting AGAINST it) you ain’t seen the last of these commissioners digging into your back pocket.
During the 2020 elections the incumbent commissioners will swear up and down that they will not raise the sales tax. What they mean is they will not raise the property tax rate. That is a deception and a deception is the same as a lie. The present tax rate is 57 cents per $100 of property evaluation. It is a big lie because the tax rate is only half of what determines what you actually pay in property taxes. The other half is the worth of your property as evaluated by the county.
For example, let’s say your total property is appraised at $50,000. What you pay, measured in dollars out of YOUR pocket is $50,000 X 0,57 divided by 100. In this case that works out to be $285.
Now, say they reevaluate your property from the lower 2016 property value evaluation to the 2021 evaluation that will be much higher. Say $65,000. Now that tax bill will be calculated at $65,000 X .57 divided by 100. Your new bill will be $370.50. That is $85.50 MORE out of your pocket. And the commissioners will claim that they didn’t raise taxes.
Now, remember that state law requires counties reevaluate property every 8 years. Counties can reevaluate property more often if they want to. Since the county reevaluated property in 2016, they don’t have to reevaluate until 2024. The reason they want to reevaluate in 2021 is to get that $85.50 for three extra years. Or $256.50 extra out of your pocket.
If you remember, before the 2016 reevaluation, the commissioners did not reevaluate your property the full 8 years from 2008. Also remember that soon after the 2008 reevaluation, the stock market crashed and property values dropped like a rock. Did the commissioners reevaluate your property at any time when the value was lower? NOooo! They purposely left that reevaluation at the higher rate so they could still dig more money out of you back pocket. At a time when times were hard and many people lost their jobs and lost their houses too. The commissioner didn’t care. They froze employee raises too. How do I know all of this? I attended commissioners’ meetings and paid attention. I heard every word and watched them purposely decide to leave the property values high.
So, what the commissioners did then, they are going to do now. Keep digging as much money out of your back pocket as they can. And lie about it.
It is also the same with the sales tax increase referendum the sneaky commissioners put on the low turnout 2019 elections. They promised everybody something with hopes that enough short-sighted fools will fall for it and vote FOR the referendum. Reevaluating in 2021 is before the 2022 commissioner’s elections and long enough time for people to forget about it before the 2022 elections. Didn’t I tell you these commissioners are sneaky?
But the answer is clear and simple. Vote AGAINST the Sales Tax increase referendum on November 5th and vote Commissioners Susan Allen, Ronnie Whetstine and Johnny Hutchins out of office in 2020!!! And put somebody in their place that can be trusted to NOT be sneaky and who will do what is right. Which is stopping wasteful spending and making everybody that receives county money be transparent and accountable to the people.
Wise up folks, you can do this!!! It will cost you dearly if you don’t.