Sales taxes aren’t going to rescue the Peachtree City budget, and selling on the cheap city property near Line Creek so another big box store can be built is a short-sighted plan.
This new shopping center will not generate more sales tax, but only shift sales and sales taxes from the Target and Kedron Kroger, Peachtree Crossing, Westpark, Braelinn, Publix and Peachtree East and other existing shops. (There may be a brief surge as people explore the “new,” but after that, sales will fall to today’s levels.)
Shifting sales and taxes among stores in Fayette County won’t help Peachtree City at all, since sales taxes from the county are bundled, and we receive a small percentage (0.0204 percent of money subject to sales tax) based on the city population as percentage of the county population.
And, our share is likely to shrink as our population remains relatively static while the population of other cities in Fayette County continues to grow.
The new center is more likely to put more existing stores out of business than to generate new sales.
It is possible that a pittance of sales will be shifted from Coweta County. The taxes on these sales, rather Peachtree City’s small share of these taxes, is poor trade for the costs and problems the center will bring.
But, it will create jobs, you say? Minimum wage, retail jobs aren’t going to rescue the budget. Nor is it likely that most of those jobs will go to PTC residents. Look at the license plates of folks arriving for work at the Target-Kedron Kroger center: Henry, Clayton, Fulton, and Spalding Counties are well represented. Fayette is a distant last.
Retail isn’t the solution to our economic problems. Retail doesn’t create wealth, it merely shifts wealth and moves money around.
Our focus and that of our elected leader should be on businesses and industries that create wealth. That is the essence of capitalism.
We must take back our government.
Paul W. Lentz, Jr.
Peachtree City, Ga.
