By MIKE HILL
COUNTY COMMISSIONER
The Financial Management Committee of the Carter County Commission voted last week to explore the feasibility of implementing a “wheel tax” in Carter County. I’m sure they are feeling immense pressure to increase revenue these days, with yet another deficit budget being presented, but a wheel tax, if implemented, will simply squeeze the same wallets that are already squeezed by ad valorem taxes. It will be an additional fleecing of the same individuals who we are asking to cough up that extra “four cents” on the property tax rate just to keep the county service levels adequate, while sliding even closer to insolvency.
A statement was made to the effect that a wheel tax would make renters finally pay their fair share, however, the idea that renters aren’t contributing to ad valorem taxes just because they choose not to own real property is absurd — all non-government properties in Carter County (including rental dwellings) are subject to ad valorem taxation, unless they are owned either by churches or non-profits.
Now, I’m not suggesting that we should tax the non-profits, churches and government, although I do believe that the U.S. Government should be really, really eager to help us better exploit forest service amenities for tourism, given that it pays nothing into the county coffers on the massive federal forest service lands located in our county. Aggressively grooming tourism as an economic generator would have a greater long term positive impact on our county finances than ad valorem increases and wheel taxes ever could, but that’s another Op-Ed for another day. What I am saying is that Carter County needs to get out of our citizens’ pockets and grow the overall revenue stream.
Instead of imposing new taxes on our old stuff, I think Carter County should first make a concerted effort to capture as much of the tax revenue that is being voluntarily generated by our citizens as possible. There is an estimated million dollar plus sales tax loss which we experience each year on soft goods and luxury items which the county has done very little to recapture. If we were to leverage current consumer trends for a change, I believe the sales and use tax revenue stream could easily generate the 1.1 million dollar figure that was mentioned in Financial Management Committee, and unlike a wheel tax, full exploitation of sales and use tax has the most potential for explosive growth, and the least potential to compromise already overtaxed budgets in our county.
Millions of sales tax dollars are already being generated, they are just not being generated here in Carter County. One doesn’t need a “certification” in economic development to understand this simple concept: Just because a consumer can’t source a product or service locally does not mean that they will choose to forever live without it, but they also won’t drive any further than they have to in order to procure it. By making desired commodities readily available here at home, we could recapture a multimillion dollar stream of voluntarily generated revenue that has been lost to adjacent counties for years. Instead of even considering another unwelcome tax levy right now, we should be striving to keep as many Carter County dollars as possible spent locally, but we also need to realize that no matter how many times we ask folks to “shop local,” they won’t do it if the products and services they seek are not locally available. Carter County will need to either open herself to modern consumer trends, or resolve to experience new tax levies and increasingly frequent ad valorem tax increases to keep up with the pace of inflation.
Carter County has long since converted to a mostly consumer and service-driven economy, yet our economic development focus has still centered heavily on industrial development even in this era of globalized labor. We talk of attracting manufacturing, all the while completely ignoring the existence of sales and use dollars projected in the millions that are leaking into the coffers of other counties each year. If recaptured, those dollars would fund our county employee payroll and roads just as surely as any potential new industrial development dollars. The biggest difference here that the sales tax revenue leak actually DOES exist, while an industrial or manufacturing concern ready to deploy operations in Carter County merely MIGHT exist. Anyone who has pre-teen daughters like I do can attest that those girls want some super-cute pieces from the “Art Class” collection at Target, plus skirts and tops from Justice and Old Navy. Right now, on this very day I guarantee you that counties where those stores are located are benefitting from the sales tax dollars of Carter County parents of pre-teen girls like me. Through this trend, Carter County’s consumer spending is effectively generating revenue for building schools and roads in places like Johnson City, Blowing Rock and Asheville, while subsequently creating the need to impose wheel taxes to generate the revenue needed to build those same things here at home. Discretionary spending on consumables and non-durable goods are always going to happen, and until we figure out how to move the cash register that rings up those purchases INSIDE Carter County, we will continue to experience this sales tax hemorrhage that builds infrastructure next door and then forces us to go deeper into our pockets when we get home. This “cash register relocation” is the key to staving off the need for future wheel taxes and property tax increases.
I would point out that industrial development and retail development are not mutually exclusive pursuits. Both fall under the purview of a high-functioning economic development office. Our county office of economic development that was somewhat controversially established last year offers lots of unique services that aren’t found in any other economic development office in the state. Unfortunately, they are busy doing things like stray animal transport, landscaping, interior design, kennel cleaning and cold melon inspections, as opposed to business recruitment. We have heard a LOT about how Carter County is trying to do “more with less,” but I fear that until we focus the efforts of our economic development office on more appropriate tasks and let other, better suited parties deal with all that other stuff, we can surely expect more wheel tax implementations, ad valorem increases and other band-aid patches, as opposed to any permanent and renewable solutions. Instead of all the ridiculous requirements for moonlighting and multi-tasking, we must allow our professionals to focus 100% on their primary jobs, tying our prosperity to business development, and not to our citizens’ wallets. Every effort must be made to capture all the lost revenue that is originating here before we seek to implement any new taxes. Our county is not thriving under the “more with less” model and it is time for something better.
(Mike Hill is a first term commissioner representing Roan Mountain. He can be contacted at mikehillcommish@yahoo.com, on Facebook @workinhardindistrict2 or during his weekly office hours on Saturday mornings at Smoky Mountain Bakers.)