The obvious appeal of this

figure is that it suggests that our tax is paid by other

people, who will continue to shop in Fayette County to

help us no matter the level of our sales tax. Our

charging them more tax is unkind, but the argument is

that these other people are unkind to us when we visit

them too. Moreover, the more they pay, the less we pay.

Here's the proof of how

wrong the SPLOST supporters are with their 30 percent

figure.

When computing the

percentage of sales tax paid by out-of-county buyers, we

must have a numerator (the sales tax amount paid by

out-of-county buyers) and a denominator (the total sales

tax paid). The total sales tax comes not from one but

three sources: (1) in-store sales in Fayette County, (2)

motor vehicle sales to Fayette County residents (no

matter where), and (3) sales of items subject to Georgia

sales tax shipped to Fayette County residents from

out-of-county vendors. That amount is easy to find.

Honoring a request I submitted under the Georgia Open

Records Act, the Georgia Department of Revenue reported

Fayette local option sales tax collections that averaged

$1.17 million a month over the last eight months. Since

the current tax rate is 1 percent, that tells us that

total sales averaged $117 million a month.

Now, let's look at Wal-Mart

and Home Depot sales to out-of-county people. The 1999

annual report of each company gives us average sales

figures per store from which we can conclude that Home

Depot takes in roughly $3.6 million a month, and Wal-Mart

$3.4 million. That's a total of $7 million a month. If we

are to believe that 30 percent of their sales are to

out-of-county buyers, then $2.1 million, or 1.8 percent

of our sales, is to outsiders. No claim has been heard

that other stores attract a lot of outsiders. Grocery

stores, especially, have a large volume of sales, and

their customer base is concededly strictly local.

There's another place where

one can look for outsider money, and that's the motels. I

count seven main motels in Fayette County, namely the

Wyndham Peachtree Conference Center (256 rooms), two

Holiday Inns (88 and 60), Days Inn (60), Hampton Inn

(61), Sleep Inn (61), and Best Western (47). The

Peachtree Conference Center has a daily rate of $139 and

the others range from $60 to $89. Under any reasonable

assumptions on occupancy, these lodging establishments

have monthly sales of about $1.5 million. That's 1.3

percent of all sales. Since the guests must eat

somewhere, we'll raise this by about a third, to 1.7

percent.

So now we're at 3.5

percent. We can show that as much as 3.5 percent of our

sales tax may come from outsiders. It'll be a cold day in

hell when the SPLOST advocates can come up with honest

figures that can raise this to 30 percent. They'll have

trouble even proving that 5 percent of our local sales

tax would come from outsiders.

Students of the social

sciences know that fraudulent schemes target the weak.

Those who are mathematically weak may buy into the 30

percent figure. Those who are morally weak may buy into

the idea of soaking visitors. Those who are naive may

relish the idea of getting something for nothing. And

greed may inspire others to concentrate on all the

benefits they might themselves derive from the extra tax.

Everybody loves a bargain, and that's why clever

marketers try to present their wares as a bargain.

For now it suffices to say

that the 30 percent figure is a lie, and that a lie is a

lie, even when it's disguised as a statistic. I

personally challenge anyone, including government

officials, to prove (in a way that is documented and can

be verified) that outsiders pay 30 percent of our current

Fayette County local option sales tax. This 30 percent

figure is a lie that has lived long enough. It's time to

snuff it out.

Claude Y. Paquin

Fayette County

[email protected]

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