To the editor: The revenue window of a county’s

To the editor:

The revenue window of a county’s budget, no less than the expenditure window, offers special insights into the life of a community, the character of its people and their priorities. Just as the way a community divvies up its revenues reveals how education and other public services rank in public esteem, the way—and the extent to which—a community taxes itself reveals two things: the community’s ideas of fairness in taxing and the value it sets On education and other social programs as compared with goods and services sold in the private markets.

Look first at how we raise revenue. Qur big money raiser, the 50-cen1, on each $100 of assessed value of real estate, accounts for 60 percent of our locally-raised revenues. But our taxes on cars, utility bills and retail sales, plus the local auto license, generate a sizable portion, more than 30 percent. Most of the rest is from charges on licenses, permits and the like.

Much of the recent budget talk has been about “other sources” of revenue, which is another way of saying, “Hit somebody else!” The hard fact is that no other major source of revenue is available to us under state law. The only significant untapped sources are taxes on businesses and farms. And, over the years, Rappahannock County has abandoned those sources. What the record shows is this:

First, the county abolished its taxes on farm machinery, equipment and livestock, on merchants’ capital, on machinery and tools, on virtually all personal property except cars, and abated one third of the property tax on agricultural land—not including buildings.

Second, the county has imposed new taxes on retail sales, on consumer utilities, and on auto licenses, and sharply boosted the property tax on autos. It also has adopted new or increased fees and charges on users of public services.

The result of this drastic shift of burdens from propertied people— many of them absentee owners—to consumers is a highly regressive tax