So there is a referendum on the ballot that is going to increase the tax on sales of prepared foods from 6% to 10%.
There are several arguments for and against this but the primary driver is that the county shaved some money off the school budget. At the same time, they increased tax relief for senior citizens so that older retirees don’t have to pay real estate taxes.
Money being fungible, this meals tax is really funding the property tax relief for those elderly residents.
But it also prevents new families with children from moving in and placing additional burden on the school system. The property tax relief has a maximum income requirement so you do not get the relief if your annual income (and income is defined VERY broadly to include gifts from your children) exceeds about 50K (about half the country median) so the homes that are getting relief are likely to generate less in property tax than the cost of schooling those children would be.
I can’t for the life of me figure out how to think about this referendum.
I’m against it, on the general principle that narrowly targeted taxes are generally a bad idea and should be limited (if used at all) as nudges to dampen activities that are strongly undesirable but not sufficiently malum in se to justify outright prohibition (e.g. tobacco taxes).
Why do senior citizens get a free ride? That is unacceptable. Unless they don’t use any government services or public roads at all, they should pay their share.
A diverse tax policy is probably an overall benefit, because too many eggs in one basket, etc.
And just from the link, it does not sound like the vote is on whether to give seniors any property tax relief. It’s just on whether to raise the meal tax. In theory, the county may give the tax breaks to seniors anyway, whether or not the meal tax is raised. I don’t think the issue of whether one supports the seniors tax break is actually a good reason to vote against the meal tax, unless one is simply in a mood to punish the county for a new policy, but not actually do anything about solving the problem. Seriously, you think the county is going to cut taxes on seniors, then reverse their decision if this meal tax isn’t approved? That doesn’t seem likely – politicians get punished for doing such things to voters who always vote, have long memories, and pinch pennies.
Think of it this way: Virginia is one of those states that gives its cities and counties very little flexibility when it comes to how to fund their government, so they’re stuck with choosing between higher property taxes, and esoteric taxes like this one.
There seems to be a wave of legislation around the country these days where states take away localities’ power to make various decisions at the local level. But Virginia’s way ahead of them; it’s always been like this.
No the tax is not directing money towards seniors specifically (although 30% of the money is to be used for property tax relief). But the argument for the tax is largely based on the notion that its going to schools so everyone should vote for it. There is almost nothing that will not get approved around here if its for schools. But the reason we need this extra income for schools is because we have been raiding the school fund to pay for other things like property tax relief for seniors. money is fungible so if we give schools this dedicates source of funds, what is to keep them from raiding the school funds again next year and saying that they STILL need more money for schools?
Seems to me that the problem is then, “What is the county spending money on when it diverts money from schools?” rather than what I read to be a reasonable policy of trying to diversify the tax base. If you don’t want the county building roads at the expense of education funding, I don’t see how living with a cut to education funding (by rejecting the ballot proposition) makes you any better off.
ETA: to say it a better way, a slippery slope argument (“they’ll just keep cutting education funding for other things in future years if we don’t under-fund education by rejecting this initiative”) is still a poor argument, no matter how strongly one feels that slippery slopes exist.
Yes. Whenever they say “this money is going to the schools” they are lying. Perhaps that dollar is, but then they took another dollar from the school budget to pay for some other pork barrel.
Not being from VA I don’t have a dog in this fight, but isn’t it generally accepted that seniors have more per capita wealth than younger people? If so, I don’t know why voters would be eager to have yet another way for poorer young people to subside their wealthier elders.