By MARTY QUEEN: Senior Reporter
For more than a year, the Burke County Board of Commissioners has bandied about the idea of implementing a quarter-cent sales tax that several surrounding counties already employ.
Now, the board is set to let voters decide the matter.
A vote on a referendum on the tax, known as Article 46, will come before the board during its regular monthly meeting next Tuesday. The referendum would be on the ballot in the Nov. 5 general election.
Commissioner Randy Burns, a longtime proponent of Article 46, said the tax would apply to most goods and services, but not to groceries (unprepared food) or fuel purchases.
He sees it as a way to generate revenue from consumers outside of Burke County who purchase goods and services here, thus removing some of the burden from residents who pay property taxes.
“It’s healthy to diversify your income, and right now, I think it’s 55.3% of our budget that depends on property taxes,” Burns said. “We’ve moved that from 57 down to 55, but I want to get it closer to 50%.”
Burns added a referendum is a good way to truly represent the will of the people.
“You’ve got to understand you’re representing 90,000 people, not just the 10 of 20 that you hear from,” Burns said. “I’d love to have a way to hear from all 90,000 of them, and a referendum is one way to do that.”
Simply put, Article 46 would push the county’s sales tax rate from 6.75% to 7%. For every $100 purchase, the sales tax would increase from $6.75 to $7.
Unlike other local option taxes, there are no restrictions on how Article 46 revenue can be used, although Burns said he’d like to see Burke County schools receive additional funding.
“A lot of counties, when they go after this, they direct it at a project and they try to sell a project,” Burns said. “My project is to lower the property taxes for people who own property in this county.”
The Article 46 tax would produce an estimated $1.5 million of revenue over the remainder of the fiscal year and about $3 million per year after that. That would amount to about 3 cents on the property tax rate, Burns said.
Burke’s property tax rate of 56 cents per $100 of tax value has stayed the same for two years in a row. The board reduced it from 69.5 cents last year after an especially high revaluation in January 2023. Even though the rate went down, some people’s property taxes went up because of the reval.
Burns said Article 46 would have a negligible impact on consumers. He used his Friday morning breakfast bill as an example. Burns paid $10.03 for his meal. Under Article 46, he would have paid $10.05.
Neighboring counties already utilizing Article 46 include Alexander, Catawba, Lincoln, and Rutherford. Of the 100 counties in the state, Burns said 48 use Article 46.
Board Chair Jeff Brittain supports the tax, saying it will take some of the pressure off county residents.
“I think it gives an opportunity to have everybody that buys goods and services in the county to help pay to help pay instead of just property owners,” Brittain said. “It won’t be a tremendous amount of money, but it lets our tourists and everybody else that comes through the county to help pay for some of this stuff that normally falls to the property owners.”
If the referendum passes, it won’t require separate legislation by the General Assembly. The state approved the tax for counties that wanted it in 2008. Burke had a referendum that year, but the tax was defeated.
“We’ve gone back and forth with it, and this month is the last opportunity that we would have this election to get it on the ballot, so we decided we would go ahead with it,” Brittain said.
“Anytime you talk about taxes, you never know how that’s going to fly. But this is one case where we can put it to the voters and let them decide.”
Burns said he’s optimistic about the measure’s chances in November.
“I’m hopeful,” said Burns. “I know it will take a concerted effort to get it there. We’ll have to have volunteers working the polling places.”
“How is it not a good thing to take the burden off property owners and spread it out among everybody?”
Marty Queen is the senior reporter for The Paper. He may be reached at 828-445-8595 or marty@thepaper.media.