The John Locke Foundation’s famous “By the Numbers†report for FY 2007 has been made public. It compares the tax burdens of North Carolina municipalities. The tax burden is defined as the quotient of revenues collected and population. Asheville’s burden was the second highest this year for cities with populations over 50,000.
Since the study only attempts to provide a general comparison without being overly invasive or costly, concerns are always raised about its methods, and each year, changes are made to more accurately reflect the impact on citizens. Asheville City Councilman Brownie Newman argued that a previous study ranked the city miserably because a lot of taxes are collected from tourists and part-time residents. Author Michael Lowrey responded that no remedy has yet been devised to account for part-time residents, as no method has yet been devised to account for services, such as trash pickup, provided by some municipalities and not others. Even though sales taxes are uniform across the state, cities like Asheville have the opportunity to reduce property taxes to compensate. Lowrey found that in FY 2007, the average North Carolinian paid 6.7% of his personal income in state taxes and fees, and 5.1% in local taxes and fees.
This year, Councilman Dr. Carl Mumpower noted that the Sullivan acts prevent the city from outsourcing a share of the water revenue burden into the county, as other municipalities in North Carolina are allowed to do. Even so, Buncombe County’s tax burden ranked 15th out of all 100 counties.
