CCEC Bulletin: 
CCEC, Inc. - April 17, 2007

A Land Transfer Tax Makes Sense

How will Chatham County pay for the infrastructure needed to support our burgeoning population (117,131 residents in Northeast Chatham alone, and approximately 146,200 residents within the County  by 2035 according to recent Triangle J projections)? Where will the funds come from for school, county office and social service buildings, water and sewer systems, court houses, fire houses, and libraries?

Today Chatham County is "behind the curve" in meeting our exploding infrastructure needs. Currently we have a $2,900 School Construction Impact Fee paid by each new home built in the county, but this is not sufficient to pay the cost of the new schools that are required, let alone other county needs.  The rest of the funding is obtained via real property taxes.  The only current way to pay for all the new costs is to keep raising the tax rate on all of Chatham’s residents, new and old.

According to a recent "Cost of Community Services in Chatham County" - by Mitch Renkow, Dept. of Ag and Resource Economics, NCSU, April 2007, for each dollar in property tax and other revenues generated by residential land use, the County spends $1.14 to provide services supporting those land uses.

CCEC believes that the proposed 1% Land Transfer Tax on all real property sales is a better option. Under this plan, generally speaking, a 1% Land Transfer Tax would be imposed on the purchase of property. Currently this method is permitted and being used by seven Eastern Counties in North Carolina. It is a HUGE SUCCESS! Adequate funding is being provided for infrastructure needs. Residential and economic development is strong. Capital needs are being met, and in some cases, real estate taxes lowered.

For Chatham County to put a Land Transfer Tax in place, three things must happen:
1. The NC Legislature must pass enabling legislation.
2. The County Board of Commissioners must approve the idea and put it to a referendum vote.
3. Finally we, the citizens, must vote to approve the Land Transfer Tax. There will only be such a tax, if we vote YES. This appears to be our only option.

More details are available on the County’s web site: http://www.co.chatham.nc.us/BulletinBoardItems/FactSheetOnLandTransferTax

Currently the Real Estate lobby has a major media campaign underway to undermine support for the 1% LTT, and the money to continue to stifle such legislation as they have in the past. Now is the time for legislators to hear from the people who find the LTT to be the best option to meet the needs to fund our future.


CCEC urges you to support this enlightened way of financing our infrastructure needs. Email or write legislators today and ask them to support House Bill 711(Chatham County only) and House Bill 153(State and Chatham) and Senate Bill 1516, all of which enable a Land Transfer Tax: internete-mail@ncleg.net.