Editorial

Editorial

Increasing the Tax Base

As Ron Frazier and Roger Cordani pointed out at ]the Board of Supervisors work session on the county budget Monday night, continual increases in the real estate tax rate are hard on some Rappahannock County citizens.

Some way must be found to increase the tax base itself, they said. They wisely did not claim bringing in more people and houses is the way to do this.

Whenever this debate comes up, some people immediately look to the value of land exempt from taxation through the land use tax system. Perhaps at the time of the next assessment, this can be modified, but any drastic change in the system is likely to be counter-productive, encouraging the conversion of farmland to houses, resulting in the need for higher taxes. i 1

Mr. Frazier said the county needs to encourage small, non-poluting businesses to move into the county. It’s hard to see how the county could do any more than it already does.

The county has’no business taxes. It is apparently unique among Virginia counties in this respect. Some preliminary studies indicate it would cost more to collect some of the potential businesses taxes than they would produce in revenue. The state has attempted to require the county to charge merchants capital taxes and taxes on machinery and tools. So far the county has escaped this requirement.

The most appealing tax would be one on meals and lodgings. This would fall primarily on tourists not county residents. However, for counties this requires an affirmative vote in a countywide referrendum. Nowhere in Virginia where this has been tried has it passed.

We encourage the Board of Supervisors to look into the possibility of passing some sort of flat business license tax. We believe there are hundreds of small businesses in the county including farms and their taxes might save a penny or more on the tax rate and begin to halt the process of relying entirely on real estate taxes to fund county services.

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