Sen. Kevin Bryant of Anderson failed in his filibuster attempt against Anderson County’s school districts penny sales-tax increase. His filibuster ended when senators voted 23-15 to approve a cloture motion. Minutes later, senators voted 35-5 to give final approval to a bill that will allow school districts in more than a dozen South Carolina counties to hold referendums on proposed sales-tax increases.During his filibuster, Bryant said these referendums could result in a $1 billion tax increase throughout the state.”We can’t afford it,” Bryant said. “There is a breaking point.”

Governor Nikki Haley signed S.B.437 on June 9. The legislation helps homeowners who rent out their primary residences part-time allowing them to keep their 4% assessment rate for owner occupied primary residence.  The new law will now allow for home owners to rent their homes for up to 72 days and still qualify for their 4% assessment rate. Prior to this bill homeowners would lose their 4% assessment rate if they rented out their property for more than 15 days in one calendar year. This bill is geared towards homeowners along the coast and on islands, however it is not limited to them so homeowners inland can benefit as well.

To read the full article please visit http://www.bna.com/property-tax-post-b17179891441/

Lexington County Council Councilman Bill Banning and Ned Tolar will face each other in a runoff on June 24th.  The outcome of the June 10th primary was a fight between those in support of the tax and those who fought hard against it in the weeks leading up to the primary. Ned Tolar a anti-tax advocate who came in second place on Tuesday in a three candidate race to the incumbent Banning. Tolar said of the proposed tax increase “The message we put our just appealed to more people, If taxes are necessary , we need to do it but, in this case, they’re not necessary.”

The third place finisher Billy Oswald endorsed Tolar after his defeat. Banner said about Tolar “he better put on his running shoes” saying that he would not be out worked by Tolar and his campaign. Banning has held his seat as county councilman for 16 years. The runoff will be in District 8 which stretches from West Columbia through the Oak Grove area to the east side of Lexington and through part of the south shore of Lake Murray.

For more on this story see The State Paper

The Great Recession had unexpected effects on South Carolinian property tax rates. When the housing market was at its height during the early and mid 2000’s citizens were begging for relief from the high property reassessment values they were getting. So in 2006 the state responded with Act 388 in 2006, which exempted owner-occupied properties from taxes to fund school operations, raised the sales tax to make up the revenue, and put a 15 percent cap on the amount a property’s taxable value could rise during reassessment. The cap was meant to approximate the rate of expected inflation. Counties reassess every five years, so the 15 percent cap represented 3 percent annual gains in real estate values.

First, property tax rates increased substantially. Normally, when counties reassess, property tax rates go down to account for rising values. But if values drop, tax rates must rise to generate the same amount of taxes.

Second, more than nine out of 10 properties in Beaufort County had capped values going into the reassessment. While most properties were worth less in 2012 than in 2007, the capped property values were often even lower because those caps were on real estate values dating back to the county’s 2002 reassessment.

Read the full story at http://www.postandcourier.com/article/20140601/PC16/140609958/1006/property-tax-reformers-never-expected-falling-values