In an interesting turn of timeliness, given my last post on fees vs. taxes, Ben Cunningham's anti-revenue website is again promoting Spring Hill's lack of property taxes, without reference to how they may be paying for their services. We've seen before that Spring Hill continues no doubt to leech money off of the rest of us via "state-shared revenues" while promoting themselves as a no-tax alternative to Tennessee's other communities. If running a town without taxes looks like a mirage, then it probably is a mirage.
UPDATE: While there are not property tax costs to living in Spring Hill, there seem to be other social and cultural costs imposed by local government. And the cost to your sense of security seems considerable (+40.7% since 2005). We may not see them raising their own revenues now, but the increasing demands on their government will eventually crack that nut (unless they find a way to continue to raise their local fees and to rely on state largess).
There are city taxes and county taxes. Spring Hill may not have a city tax, but there are definitely county taxes to pay. Metro city taxes are not so bad, it's the county taxes that make up the majority of the bill. Rutherford County likely has low county taxes and impact fees and other stuff that Davidson County will not do so we don't harm the poor builders that leave the citizens for holding the bag on infrastructure.
ReplyDeleteA lof to that state "largesse" that Spring Hill gets comes of course from sales taxes that Spring Hill residents pay on almost everything they buy. And gas taxes that they pay (and a lot of them have long commutes into Brentwood and downtown Nashville).
ReplyDeleteAnd of course all the businesses there pay the various state business taxes, which are a big part of the state's revenue. With Spring Hill's business community growing so fast, especially the retail sector, state revenue from business taxes and sales taxes has got to be rising from Spring Hill.
They aren't leeching off the rest of us.
Also, Spring Hill residents do pay a local sales tax, I believe.
ReplyDeleteFrom answers.com:
ReplyDeletelar·gess also lar·gesse (lär-zhĕs', -jĕs', lär'jĕs')
Since you are playing the spelling checker, I'll point out that your use of "A lof to that state ..." makes no sense.