By Robert Kittle
You would pay less in property taxes on your vehicle but more in sales taxes under a new bill in the South Carolina House. The bill would raise more money for South Carolina schools and roads.
The bill is being co-sponsored by Rep. Jenny Horne, R-Summerville, and Rep. Mia McLeod, D-Columbia. “This would equalize funding across the state. This would give every child the adequate resources to be prepared for this 21st Century job environment that we have,” Rep. Horne said Wednesday at a Statehouse news conference.
The bill would create a new statewide property tax of 100 mills. All but three of the counties in South Carolina have a millage rate higher than that now, so property taxes would go down on vehicles, rental properties, and businesses. The new property tax would not be charged on owner-occupied homes.
No school districts would get less money from the state than they do now for the next 25 years. Most would get more money than they currently do.
“This bill also repeals some sales tax exemptions in order to create the revenue necessary to fund the program,” Rep. Horne says.
She says a good example is gasoline. Right now, you don’t pay the sales tax on it, but she thinks it’s an exemption that should end. “There are some of them that are worthy of retaining, but there are a lot of them that make no sense and they don’t have any place anymore. They’re outdated or there is really no necessity for those exemptions,” she says.
Other sales tax exemptions that could disappear are prescription drugs and groceries. “If there are concerns about any particular exemption, we intend to address those exemptions in committee,” Rep. Horne says.
The bill would remove about $2 billion worth of sales tax exemptions. Half of the new money would go to schools while the other half would go to roads and bridges.
The Taxation Realignment Commission, or TRAC, recommended in 2010 doing away with sales tax exemptions but lawmakers ignored the report. Horne says things are different now in the state, though, after the state Supreme Court ruled that the state is not providing an adequate education in poor, rural districts. She says this plan would address that, which the Supreme Court ordered lawmakers to do.
Rex Wall of Irmo was paying the property tax on his car Wednesday. He also has one child who’s already graduated and one still in a public school. When told about the bill, he said, “I think taxes are kind of high in general across the board. But as long as there was a reasonable, straightforward tax to the schools, I would be somewhat in favor.”