For the love of God I do not understand what Mecklenburg County Commission chair Jennifer Roberts is talking about. If you are worried that a property revaluation with result in too-high tax bills for local businesses and residents, then you cut the property tax rate. Someone please tell me what I am missing, this is driving me crazy.
Yes, doing a reval now would be confusing and messy. Folks like Wachovia chief economist John Silvia make the argument that it would be too confusing and messy to make it worthwhile to reval now. I disagree with that as I think the situation will be much the same in late 2009, but that is at least a coherent argument. Acting like the reval alone sets the tax burden like Roberts and other county officials have simply makes no sense.
Worse this non-sense will very likely cost the county at least hundreds of thousand of dollars, possibly millions, by forcing the county to redo reval calculations next year while allowing some individuals and businesses to avoid paying the tax on the updated value of their property.
You watch, next spring’s budget writing season is going to be a circus as a result.
