A couple of looks at the property transfer tax, one from the N&R’s Mark Binker and the other from former Wake County commissioner Phil Jeffreys.

See if you can find the common theme. Binker writes…..

However, Gov. Mike Easley , a Democrat, and many legislators favor giving counties the transfer tax as an alternative to raising property taxes or levying additional sales taxes, which they say hurts those on the lowest end of the income scale.

“They cannot continue to put the burden on property taxes,” Easley said during a news conference last week.

….while Jeffreys writes:

Wake County has 319,528 deeded properties. In 2006, 42,101 were transferred, which is 13.4 percent of all deeds.

If transfer fees had been in effect, the county would have collected $138.8 million — or the equivalent of 17.25 cents of property tax.

So deeds transferred in 2006 represented only 13.4 percent of all deeds, resulting in 86.6 percent of residents who owned deeds not being financially affected at all.

If transfer fees had been in effect, the county would not have to raise property taxes this year and probably would be lowering same.

OK, so the assumption, which has been there all along, is that counties won’t have to raise property taxes if a transfer tax is in place. Why do I not believe this?

Maybe it’s the situation here in Guilford County. The N&R’s Jim Scholsser has an article in today’s paper on Guilford County historic preservation specialist Julie Curry, who lost her job as a result of the county’s budget cuts, a move that has upset preservationists around here.

I don’t mean any disrespect toward Curry or anyone else who might lose their jobs as a result of county budget cuts. But you have to look a the big picture: These cuts are taking place even with a three-cent hike in property taxes.

So government leaders can say all they want that one tax will offset another. Don’t believe it; there’s never enough for those guys.

Meck Deck’s Jeff Taylor puts in his three cents worth.