Tax Fraud, Beaufort County Style | Eastern NC Now

Tax Fraud, Beaufort County Style

BY: HOOD RICHARDSON

Beaufort County Commissioners and some of our staff have deceived property taxpayers. The recent tax revaluation was disrupting and stressful to almost all of our citizens. High valuations caused alarm among residents. To calm property taxpayers the Board of County Commissioners promised all taxpayers we would not collect more tax revenue during the 2025/26 tax year than we did during the 2024/25 tax year. The words “revenue neutral” were used. The public took this to mean not one dollar more than was collected the year before the revaluation took effect would be collected. When I made my tax promises to our citizens, I was promising not one more dollar would be collected. Tandy Dunn and Stan Deatherage believed the same.

Holding the line on the amount of money collected is an easy promise to make. Citizens are overtaxed anyway. We have approximately a 75-million-dollar budget and about 30 million in reserve, called fund balance. That is not the whole story. In order to justify not giving a tax reduction, money is siphoned off and placed in a “capital projects” account so it does not show up as a growing fund balance. That account has more than five million dollars in it.

This year, the 2025/26 tax year, Beaufort County is collecting $2,725,558.54 more this year than was collected the year before the revaluation. This is a 7.48 percent increase in taxes. This is an accurate number because the tax levy for 2024/25 was $37,045,032.88 and the levy for 2025/26 is $39,689,260.25. The rate is based on the total value of all property divided by amount of money we spend. The levy is the amount of money we need to balance the budget. The budget is enacted as an ordinance. These are hard and immutable numbers. This did not happen without the County Manager, the head of finance and the assessor knowing. These are the people along with Fake Frankie Waters who led me to believe this is the rate we promised the taxpayers. I believe Fake Frankie Waters knew because of his backroom dealings. Whether Ed Booth, Randy Walker and Jerry Langley knew is an unknown. However, they acted knowledgeable and did not hesitate when they voted to keep the money and not return it to the rightful owners, the taxpaying citizens of Beaufort County.

My motion was to correct the supposed error by reducing the tax rate for the coming year by 7.48 percent. That would bring the rate for the 2026/27 year down to about 41 cents from 44.5 cents.

In order that taxpayers not be manipulated and lied to as a result of revaluation the Legislature requires that each county publish a revenue neutral rate. The statutes prescribe how to do this. There is room for judgment in how the statute is applied. Remember the saying “Figures don’t lie but liars figure”. That is what happened to us.

The promise to the public was that we would set the tax rate so as not to collect more revenue from property taxes than we collected during the 2024/25 tax year. We used the term “revenue neutral” but at no time do I recall promising to increase taxes. We did say we are required to publish the revenue neutral rate as required by the statute.

Tax fraud and not paying your taxes are two different things. Not paying taxes is a civil matter and there are many ways, all set out in the statutes, for the Tax Collector to collect. He can seize bank accounts or garnish your paycheck. Penalties and interest are added so the bill grows with time.

Tax fraud means a deliberate effort was made to make the Tax Collector believe a person owed less tax or even no tax. Because an effort was made to deceive the Tax Collector this is a criminal matter. Once discovered, not only are the taxes and penalties due and collectable but the individual may serve time in jail.

We are in the realm of “tax fraud”. This time Beaufort County Government committed tax fraud. I apologize to you, the taxpayer, for my not investigating how this rate was arrived at.