Transfer Tax robocall

Reasons:

1. There is far more money available to be collected in existing property taxes than is now being collected, simply by finding the abuses that already exist in the system, and weeding them out. For example, if the back taxes and interest on just ONE fradulent "land use exemption" situation I know of were collected, you'd have nearly $500,000! I see little indication that situations like this are rare, nor that they will be attended to in any timely fashion.
2. Orange County is effectively a one-party political fiefdom. Since there's no realistic expectation of any political opposition to tax increases, you can bet your bottom that the 0.4% proposed initial levy is a 'teaser rate' and will be raised every time somebody has a good idea about how to spend other people's money.
3. And yet further, advocates of this tax are unwilling to commit to a future rate-adjustment cap on regular property tax rates. My own property tax bill went up 17% in the past 4 years alone, far more than inflation AND far more than my own income increased. What guarantee would I have that this rate of increase won't remain, even IF the new tax is approved? Call me a cynic if you must, but this County isn't known for fiscal conservatism.

Tugging at heartstrings, some opponents of the tax on selling property label it “the home tax,” though the tax would apply to all transfers of property, like sales of junk yards, night clubs, and undeveloped land about to be paved over. That’s like labeling the tax on retail sales “the Bible tax” because it taxes every Bible that’s sold. (North Carolina tried in 1939 to exempt just Bibles, but that’s not Constitutional: http://bulk.resource.org/courts.gov/c/F2/902/902.F2d.1158.89-2767.html.)  The “home tax” label is measurably less of a distortion than “Bible tax,” but it’s a distortion, and a shrewd one.

If part can describe the whole, “land flipping tax” and “property churning tax” will do.

I'm becoming downright embarrassed by the advertising that is flooding into Orange County by the NC Association of Realtors and by the Citizens for a Better Orange County.   Even if I were against the tax, I'd want to disassociate myself from these ads.

 I'm now looking at a brochure mailed, I assume, to every registered voter in the county.  It sells gloom, doom, and fear in an attempt to defeat the tax.  On the front page is a little girl being held by her father.  I can't begin to understand how they got this little girl to look so pitiful.

I know many of the people who are on the CBOC list of supporters that is published on their website, and they are positive people.  In Chapel Hill, based on yard signs, the epicenter of the anti-tax movement is in the Oaks, one of the most affluent regions of town.  The people who live there did something right to get there.  They certainly don't look at the world as a dark, forboding place full of doom, gloom and fear.  Yet they are willing to support such advertising.  What am I missing here?  Are these people so afraid of a tax that they will flood us with such despondent literature?  It's got to be more than the old saw that negative advertising works.

Found this on Orange Chat. Thanks to Mark Peters for sharing it on Google Video.

My mailbox is also groaning from the overwhelming influx of spin from the Realtors’ lobbyists.

Let's start with the regressivity argument against the LTT: if a 0.4% transfer tax on a home sale is regressive, what is a 6% realtor's commission on a home sale? Sounds like 15 times the "regressivity" to me.

When we bought our condo in 2006, we did not retain a realtor, and we bought from a seller who did not use a realtor. Both parties had lawyers, worked collaboratively to settle improvements to the unit before move-in while protecting our property rights, and we had a successful sale where the seller certainly made more money than they would have if a realtor had sold it, and we probably paid less than we would have if the seller had to adjust her price to accommodate a 6% realtor's fee.

The transfer tax, if adopted, will be another piece of information absorbed into the price of any home sold in the county. On a theoretical $150,000 house, the tax would be $600. The transfer tax on a theoretical $150,600 house is $602.40. The transfer tax on a theoretical $150,602.40 house is $602.41. Simply move the price to $150,605 and the tax is $602.42, and the seller has covered the cost in the home price and you wind up with $2.58 left over. This level of price shift on a $150,000 house is not going to make or break the deal on a sale.

But what about the impact on the buyer? I ran a 30-year, 6% fixed-rate mortgage on a $150k house through bankrate.com. The monthly is $899.33 Then I ran the $150,602.40 through on the same terms. $902.94. That’s a difference of $3.63/month. Again, this differential is not going to make the difference on whether or not someone buys a house.

I’m voting in favor of the LTT. It is wrong to suggest we would best save lower-income families money by not passing this tax which is ultimately a de facto impact fee by other means on the buyer embedded in the price of the home, not an impact on the seller.

Locally, Mayor Chilton has been out in front as a realtor who is for the LTT. Most others have been quiet, so I assume they support Mark Zimmerman and his astroturf Raleigh-based mail campaign.

If we really wanted to save lower-income families money when they sold their homes, we would offer publicly-sponsored classes on how to use Craigslist, Zillow, Flat Fee Listing, and lawyers to avoid giving 6% of their sale price to a traditional realtor, while lobbying the state legislature to unlock the MLS for average citizens to put their home into the database for a reasonable price. In 2005, the US Department of Justice pursued an anti-trust lawsuit against the National Association of Realtors for their activities in working to prevent access to the MLS to a broader group of organizations and individuals. Read about it in the Sept 2005 Washington Post (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/09/08/AR2005090802094.html)

Leslie Stahl from 60 Minutes also followed up on this issue in 2007.

http://www.flatfeelisting.com/60min.html

Whatever your position on the tax, keep in mind that the primary group campaigning against it is the local branch of a national lobbyist organization that the Justice Department is treating as a de facto cartel which acts as a diversified, conglomerate monopoly with sole access to the MLS.

 We're voting on a referendum about a transfer tax, not realtor fees.   Realtors  provide a  service for which they charge a fee--just like many of the rest of us who post on this forum.     if you don't think the fee is worth it, then don't use one.  As the poster above discussed,   you don't have to use a realtor to buy or sell a house.    There is nothing regressive about hiring  a realtor to help you sell your house.   They are voluntary,  A tax isn't. 

And just as an aside, the personal attacks on Mark Z and others on both sides of this issue are just not OK.   If we want to question Mark's  "right" to speak out on this issue because he doesn't currently live in Orange County--though his current and previous companies probably pumped more money into  the County budget than most of us will contribute in a lifetime----then I can  make the argument that only people who actually own real estate in Orange County should be allowed to vote or have an opinion on this matter.   

I really hate the connotation that the people who oppose the tax are somehow stingy, or that anyone who supports it is  trying to make a money grab.    I'm personally just tired of us imposing another tax on existing infrastructure when we need $$ rather than encouraging and allowing development that wants to pay taxes in this community and won't use our most expensive services---schools and human services.  

On the website for "Real Orange County Citizens Working for the Best Option to Fund our Schools and Parks" it says "Capital needs, like new schools require large sums that are obtained by issuing bonds. Currently, the County has reached its self-imposed borrowing limits, but still has necessary, unmet needs for schools and parks." But missing from that statement, and from the entire site, is any ackowledgement of the existing $3,000 school impact fee imposed on new development specifically for the purpose of capital construction of new school facilities.

Can someone explain to me why the currently intact and approved school impact fee is not sufficient for financing "the expansion of the public school facilities in the county necessary to maintain current levels of service while accommodating new residential growth"?