RubberBuzz || Akron Unleashed: One Step Forward, One Step Back

6.13.2005

One Step Forward, One Step Back

Ohio is in the process of removing a tangible property tax on businesses. This is a property tax assessed on the net worth of equipment a business holds. It is a deterrent to businesses that are looking to open up shop in Ohio, but now that it's going, hopefully we'll begin to see businesses return to the Buckeye State.

Fewer than 10 states still have a tangible personal property tax. Business groups have complained for decades that the tax makes Ohio less competitive.

The tax raises about $1.6 billion a year and, like real estate taxes, the revenue goes mostly to schools, but also cities, villages and other local governments.

But while this tax is leaving, a new tax is on the horizon. And this one the voters won't get to approve.

For years, school officials have asked the state legislature to let local property taxes grow annually to help fight inflation and reduce the number of levies put before voters.

But for years, lawmakers have argued local voters should approve or reject attempts to raise their property taxes.

It is a way, lawmakers have maintained, for voters to hold their local school and government officials accountable.

A small clause, however, in the massive two-year state budget will raise local property taxes in scattered school districts across the state by an estimated $45 million a year, a half mill at a time, and this increase will not need, nor will it get, the approval of local voters.[...]

"If a district has voted a fixed dollar bond issue, the auditor looks at the current rates and determines if enough revenue is generated to cover the issue," [State Sen. Kevin] Coughlin [R-Cuyahoga Falls] wrote.

He said the legislature was not mandating a half-mill increase.

"We capped the auditors' ability to adjust at one-half mill. The state provides funds for any need above that. Of course, after the issue runs its course, the half mill goes away," Coughlin said.[...]

For Dolores Cramer, the Marysville School District treasurer, and the treasurers she surveyed across Ohio, this is not a semantical issue, but a very real, unvoted tax increase.[...]

Cramer said it is puzzling that lawmakers and the governor are implementing the half-mill tax increase that saves them $45 million, but senators rejected the House plan to let local voters approve levies that grow with inflation, which would reduce the need for school boards and superintendents to return to the polls.

This will be another interesting topic to watch. With so many schools in the area starving for cash, the half-mill increase could solve some issues, but the residents have no say. That's starting to sound a little Big Brother-ish to me.

The BJ :: Half-mill tax doesn't need voter approval

(joe :: One Step Forward, One Step Back)

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