Anyone who’s gone into Harris Teeter in the last two years knows that the price of just about everything has been going up – and that may soon also be true of the amount cities and towns in Guilford County pay the Guilford County Tax Department for the service of collecting their property taxes.
People who live in unincorporated Guilford County pay county property taxes and the people who live in cities and towns that have property taxes, pay both county taxes and the taxes owed to their municipalities. However, in all cases, it’s the Guilford County Tax Department that collects those taxes.
Guilford County charges each town and city .62 percent of the amount collected in municipal taxes, and that rate has remained the same for the past 13 years. Now, however, the Guilford County Board of Commissioners is considering raising that collection fee to either .75 percent or a full 1 percent.
The board was supposed to kick off that discussion at a work session held just before Christmas. However, other issues took longer than expected that day, so the board will discuss the possible change at an afternoon work session on Thursday, Jan. 4.
At the pre-Christmas work session, some representatives of towns showed up and sat in the audience and that may also be the case at the upcoming work session.
According to the Guilford County Tax Department, the department has the responsibility “to list, appraise, assess, bill and collect taxes on real and personal property each year,” and it strives to provide “excellent customer service” in that regard.
The department administers all property tax matters for 12 municipal jurisdictions, as well as 22 fire districts and a few special tax districts within the county.
Guilford County Tax Director Ben Chavis is pointing to the increased costs of collecting property taxes as one reason the county commissioners may wish to up the percentage charged.
There have been, for instance, greater costs in recent years for the aerial pictometry imagery used to find new structures and find changes to old ones. Other factors adding to increased costs for the department are more frequent countywide reappraisals and the necessity of adding more staff to handle tax collection.
While costs have increased, the percentage paid by the towns and cities hasn’t changed in well over a decade, and soon the commissioners will decide whether or not the service will be priced higher starting this year and, if so, how much higher.
Hey Scott, I think it is called a tax increase.
Get ready good citizens the other shoe is about to drop. Skips 30% tax money from last year is gone so now he’s looking to get more from us in any way possible. Remember the money pit has to be funded. How many people paid in Nov. or Dec. to walk through Skip. Stand up and be a real man and tell us the true numbers. Don’t be ashamed we already know the answer. Someone inside your money pit has already spilled the beans
They are already getting more money. Taxes have gone up as a result of the re-evaluation instituted two years ago. Was it a 30% increase with no adjustment of the rate?
Go ahead and put the Biden multiplier on this also!
when taxes increased 30% the county received .62% of that 30%. they already received a increase
Will anyone live long enough to actually see a tax abolished by “elected officials?”…asking for a friend.
Even “Temporary Taxes” are never repealed.
We’re still paying a tax on food we buy at the grocery store (essentials like bread and milk) after “Food Tax Terry” Sanford (D) imposed Sales Tax on food as a temporary measure…… in 1961.
If the Commissioners want to increase the fees that are paid to manage tax collection, then maybe they should eliminate the collection of tax by outside contractors. The outside contractors charge an individual transaction fee for the privilege of using a debit/credit card to pay property tax. The county or cities should consider doing away with contractor collection services for tax and save the taxpayer quite a few dollars. These debit/credit collection fees seem to be another tax imposed on the individual for trying to expedite the receipt of tax by the county. Does the county get a kickback for using such services? That answer lies with Ben Chavis and those people who set up the contractor electronic collection process. Maybe the commissioners should abandon a nationwide company from having such a service contract and develop an inhouse debit/credit card collection process and save the taxpayer some money. Doing this would allow Chavis and the Commissioners to justify hiring more people in the tax department.
Name something our govt does well.