In more naive days, many counties

in Georgia, including Fayette, elected to have a Local Option Sales Tax

(LOST). That's the 1 percent we pay today on top of the 4 percent state

sales tax.

Back in 1999, our Board of

Education estimated (fairly, I believe) that each 1 percent of local sales

tax would bring in about $90 million over five years, so it is reasonable

to think that between 2003 and 2012 this tax would raise $200 million.

That comes largely out of our pockets as consumers, of course, when large

items like cars are purchased or ongoing purchases of items like groceries

are made.

This $200 million tax will

be paid by Fayette county citizens and basically belongs to the county,

and all its citizens. After all, haven't all the county's citizens paid

it? Haven't they all paid the same rate of 1 percent?

Through a flaw in the law creating

the LOST, counties are expected to negotiate with the cities within the

county over the distribution of the LOST revenues among themselves. These

negotiations are expected to take place every 10 years, after the latest

census data is in. They are taking place right now. Were it not for the

self-reported ethical lapses of the Peachtree City mayor, we might not

even know these negotiations are going on.

The last time this tax pie

was divided into pieces was in August 1992. At the time, Peachtree City

was given 35.64 percent, Fayetteville was given 11.36 percent, Tyrone

got 4.91 percent, and tiny Brooks got .59 percent. The county government

got the remainder, 47.5 percent. That's now been going on for 10 years.

This division was pretty much

in line with the population of the cities and of the unincorporated part

of the county in 1990.

If the citizens who live in

the unincorporated part of the county represent 47.5 percent of our population,

it is fair to think they pay 47.5 percent of the county's local sales

tax. The problem comes from what the county does with its 47.5 percent

share. It does not use it just for the benefit of the citizens in the

unincorporated part of the county, it uses it for the benefit of all county

citizens, which it advertises for all the world to see in our county property

tax bills (to be received in the fall) by showing how the county property

tax of every taxpayer in the county, including those in the cities, was

reduced by the county share of the local sales tax.

Thus city residents receive

their full share of the local sales tax through their cities (as a reduction

of their city property tax), and then they get some more through a further

reduction in their county property taxes. The unincorporated residents

essentially get back just 47.5 percent of what they paid in local sales

tax (and they are not supposed to notice).

There are two obvious potential

solutions here. One would be for the county to use the local sales tax

it gets from the unincorporated residents for the exclusive benefit of

the unincorporated residents and not for the city residents. But apparently

the law does not permit that.

The other solution would be

for the county to receive 100 percent of the local sales tax, and then

apply it equitably among all its citizens, whether they live in cities

or the country. City residents would get their fair share, but they would

not be getting it through their city government. That would make city

government officials mad, but it would still be fair.

There is a third possible solution.

If the cities and the county can't agree on the split of this tax pie,

the tax just stops. Stopping this local sales tax might not be such a

bad idea, when you think about it, because we have many commercial property

owners and large land owners in this county who don't pay a lick of sales

tax and then enjoy a property tax "rebate" from the local sales

tax. The reason they don't pay sales tax is that they hardly buy anything.

It is reasonable to think that property taxes, including theirs, would

go up a little if the local sales tax is removed, but for those of us

who'd otherwise pay the local sales tax there would be a nice reduction

in sales tax to make up for the property tax increase.

These are the things politicians

don't talk about. Since we have an election coming, we should make them

talk about it. We are probably doomed to 10 more years of inequitable

taxation anyway, since the deal is likely to be cut next month (August

2002), the cities are hungry, and some of our commissioners are weak.

Sometimes our politicians wonder why we, the public, hold them in contempt.

It might be because they tolerate situations like this.

Claude Y. Paquin

Fayette County

[email protected]