Queen City Consistency: Tops In Taxes
Like night follows day, Charlotte is tops again in the total tax burden local government places on its citizens. This from the John Locke Foundation’s annual “By The Numbers” report on tax burdens in North Carolina:
Charlotte’s local taxes and fees totaled $2,360 per resident for the 2009 budget year. That total helps the state’s largest city rank No. 1 on the tax-burden list for the 10th straight year.
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Among 92 ranked medium-sized municipalities, several Charlotte-area communities ended up above the state median in local government costs, including Pineville ($2,201), Davidson ($1,975), Cornelius ($1,902), and Harrisburg ($1,897). Those with tax and fee burdens closer to the median were Lincolnton ($1,742), Conover ($1,664), Mint Hill ($1,663), Mount Holly ($1,589), Albemarle ($1,556), Belmont ($1,552), Newton ($1,538), Stallings ($1,412), and Cherryville ($1,399). Bessemer City ($1,334), Wadesboro ($1,297), Weddington ($1,131), Wesley Chapel ($1,100), Fairview ($1,073), and Unionville ($1,068) had costs significantly below the median.
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Mecklenburg County (5.48 percent) had the state’s ninth highest rate of taxes and fees as a share of income. Cabarrus (5.28 percent) ranked No. 12. Most of the rest of the area’s counties had rates closer to the state median. Catawba (4.74 percent), Anson (4.74 percent), Gaston (4.64 percent), Iredell (4.58 percent), Union (4.58 percent), and Stanly (4.41 percent) all had rates higher than the median rate of 4.33 percent. Rowan (4.26 percent) and Lincoln (4.19 percent) had lower rates.
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“The typical resident of the median county in North Carolina paid $1,304 in taxes and fees to county and municipal governments in the 2009 budget year,” said report author Michael Lowrey, a JLF policy analyst. “That’s up slightly from an inflation-adjusted $1,298 figure for 2008. But as a percentage of personal income, the number dipped slightly from 4.77 percent to 4.56 percent.” Lowrey cautioned against misreading the numbers. “It’s likely that the figures actually understate the impact of local taxes and fees,” he explained. “Personal income figures are based on the 2008 calendar year, which showed increases for the state as a whole. The worst of the economic downturn is not captured in these figures.”
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North Carolina collected $17 billion in state tax and fee revenues from July 1, 2008, to June 30, 2009. That’s 5.2 percent of state residents’ personal income. Local governments collected an additional $14.9 billion in property, sales, and other taxes and fees. That’s another 4.6 percent of personal income. ”Combined, they represent a state and local tax and fee burden of about 9.8 percent,” Lowrey said. “Federal collections raise the total tax burden on North Carolinians to approximately 27.1 percent of personal income, on average.”
And just think – local leaders are pushing for all they’re worth to not only hike local property taxes on the heels of MeckCo’s reval, but also lobbying legislators to extend so-called temporary tax increases that were set to expire this year.
Wonderful.
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