While wages have supposedly
gone up 3.4% in 2018, taxes and fees are rising at much higher rates.
Here's a list of tax and fee
increases hitting residents of one of the counties I call home; the list
includes taxes/fees raised in 2017 and 2018:
1. Property
taxes: between 6.5% and 10%, depending on the property class
2. Gasoline
tax (county), from 8.8 cents to 23 cents, phased in over 3 years
3. General
excise tax, up 6.3%
4. Garbage
fee (commercial): up 27%
5. Sewer
fees: up 44%
6.
Electricity (base rate): up 7.4%
7. Annual
vehicle safety inspection fee (state): up $5.81
8. County
water service: up 8%
9.
Accommodation fee (a.k.a. hotel tax) (state): up 10%
I may have missed a few, but
you get the idea: while wages have supposedly gone up 3.4% in 2018, taxes
and fees are rising at much higher rates. (Given that the Consumer Price Index
underweights increases in big-ticket costs such as healthcare and college, the
3.4% gain is suspect; those households exposed to giant leaps in expenses
likely lost ground).
I understand local governments are caught in a vise: wages and benefits to their employees make up the
majority of their expenses, and those costs are mandated by union contracts
and/or state-level agreements.
Many local governments cut services in the Great
Recession rather than raise fees and taxes, and so now that the economy has
"recovered," they're rushing to raise revenues to restore services or
deal with the backlog of projects set aside during the lean years.
But none of that makes it
easier for households and enterprises getting hit by fast-rising fees and
taxes. The
above list is just the tip of the iceberg: how much does a simple parking
ticket cost you now? In many locales, what once cost $15 is now north of $60.
How about
the cost for a copy of an official document at the County Records office? In
many locales, what was once a nominal fee is no longer nominal.
We all know public pensions are
often underfunded, or dependent on outsized stock market gains, which means the
increases in local government taxes and fees are just getting started.
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