The Uptown paper of record today makes clear that Mecklenburg County and city of Charlotte must have a real estate transfer tax in order to pay for schools, roads, and police officers. Without a real estate transfer tax, or some other new tax on residential real estate, the city and the county simply will not have enough money to pay for basic functions of government.
That is what the editors at the Observer truly believe, what the top rungs of the Chamber of Commerce thinks, what the city and county professional staff thinks — in short, it is what the Uptown crowd knows right down to the soles of their tasseled-loafers and their sensible heels.
Local taxpayers, they believe, are undertaxed and local government starved for revenue. Of course, that belief runs totally and completely counter to fact: Charlotte already has the highest tax burden among North Carolina cities and North Carolina itself is a high-tax state compared to its competitors and neighbors. Meanwhile local revenue growth has been running at a steady six to eight percent clip in recent years — plenty to fund basic municipal services.
Is it that overall revenue stream enough to pay for a $500 million light rail line, a $150 million NASCAR Hall of Fame, a $265 million basketball arena, a $160 million arts complex, a $34 million baseball stadium, a $35 million Whitewater park, pay raises for city and county workers, a new 311 system, and various economic development handouts to businesses? No. That is why the city and county have passed a raft of tax hikes in recent years, including property tax hikes by both the city and the county.
And it still is not enough.
That is why the next great Uptown crusade will be for a real estate transfer tax — it hits all real estate transactions, unlike impact fees which hit just new construction — and hence will be spun as “fair.”
And all you have to do to make their plans a reality is nothing.
