Cobb County’s March 15 SPLOST Vote: Deception #3
by PV
Deception #3: “If SPLOST doesn’t pass, your property taxes will go up.”
The deception in this claim is that even IF this SPLOST passes, your property taxes WILL likely be going up. There is a 99.9999% chance of property taxes going up.
How does PV know this? By reading tea leaves that few other people read. AND…there are people in the county’s government that also KNOW the property taxes are going to go up whether this SPLOST passes or not.
Not sure if Tim Lee knows this himself, but there are several people involved in the pro-SPLOST group who know it for a fact because they know what has been happening to this county’s Tax Digest.
That is, the base of asset values has plummeted. The number of people requesting reassessments of their homes has increased dramatically, and will continue to be requested all the way up to April 1.
Another strong indicator of our county’s financial strength is the number of active businesses currently registered with the Business License Department. Here are some interesting facts regarding the number of actively licensed businesses in Cobb County Unincorporated:
2009 Business Count: 34,552
2010 Business Count: 20,074
2011 Business Count: 18,821
In 2 short years (2009 to 2011), the strength of the business community has plunged by nearly 50%. That means the amount of economic activity has likely been cut by more than half. When businesses close, employees are laid-off, business owners go broke, stop producing goods and services, stop investing, and a lot of those business owners are individual residents of Cobb County who are under water in their homes and, under water in their personal cash flow to meet obligations of all sorts.
AND, when business owners who are residents who are also homeowners have to file for bankruptcy and their homes are foreclosed on, the value of those assets dives. And, when you accumulate all those foreclosures into a big pile, that will be reflected in the substantial decrease of value in the county Tax Digest.
This decrease in the Tax Digest valuations will NOT be able to be made-up via sales tax revenues. The millage rates will have to be increased.
The reality of this SPLOST is a) everyone that still owns a piece of property in Cobb are going to have taxes raised, or fees added by the county commission…whether this SPLOST passes or not, and 2) IF this SPLOST passes, it will be a massive tax redistribution from the poor to middle-class in this county straight into the pockets of the already very well-off Cobb County business owners who will get the lion’s share of project money for these “wants” that the county, and the 6 cities, think they deserve to take from your pocket.
The County should do the responsible thing and admit this to you now. Because, if the SPLOST fails, we will be saving 16.7% of our sales taxes in this county. That is money the County can get when they squeeze us on raising the property and auto tag taxes. You’re going to want that extra 16.7% savings you get to use to pay for the millage increases.
