Baumgardner questioned

Baumgardner questioned whether the supervisors could exempt merchants’ capital from the tax rolls. He said the county may have to require merchants’ inventory to be reported and then set a tax rate at zero to achieve the same result. ‘‘As a practical matter, you can exempt it by assessing merchants' capital at zero.” he said.

“If we can eliminate it. we will. If we can't, we’ll assess (merchants’ capital) at a reduced rate." Luke said.

Trying to determine what exactly the supervisors were voting on. clerk Diane Bruce asked if they intended to pass the tax ordinance as h was advertised for public hearing.

"Not as it was written because we’re not going to shift the tax burden all on automobiles," replied supervisor H. B. Wood.

"I'm bothered by not knowing what the tax will be on cars." said supervisor Clarence Baldwin.

Wood agreed that he too didn't want to see changes in personal property tax place an undue burden on automobiles. He maintained that the supervisors would have to trust each other to see that this doesn’t happen when the budget is approved next spring.

Likewise, Supervisor Hubert Gilkey objected to not knowing the impact tax changes will have on automobile assessments.

Ceiling Proposed

As protection, Newbill Miller suggested that the supervisors put a ceiling on the amount of money that can be raised by the automobile tax, limiting it to a specific percentage increase of this year’s license revenue.

“And whatever other revenue we have to have would be made up on real estate,’’ Baldwin added.

The supervisors agreed that total revenues collected next year from automobile

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