More on the Tax Rip Off | Eastern NC Now

More on the Tax Rip Off

BY: HOOD RICHARDSON

The fact that the Beaufort County Commissioners raised property taxes 7.48 percent this year has not been disputed. The proof of the increase is in the tax levy numbers. There is a $2,725,558.54 increase in the 2025/26 levy from the 2024/25 levy. The public was promised that we would not collect more taxes this year than we did last year. Normally Commissioners have to vote to increase taxes and set the rate.

The deceit came with the presentation of the “revenue neutral rate”. During the year of a revaluation the Legislature requires counties to publish what the new rate would be, based on the new valuation of property, in order to collect the same amount of money as was levied (collected) under the value before the new valuation. The legislation provides a method of calculation to do this. Commissioners are not required to use the revenue neutral rate. They may either raise, lower or use the revenue neutral rate.

The Legislature requires the revenue neutral rate to be calculated because counties were increasing tax collections and blaming it on the revaluation. The law was passed to stop exactly what happened here in Beaufort County.

A rate of 44.5 cents per 100 dollars of value was presented as the revenue neutral rate. The old rate was 63.5 cents. None of the county staff ever said this increases taxes. They said this is the revenue neutral rate. The Legislature allows some adjustments in the revenue neutral calculations which should make some insignificant changes in the rate. It is a big jump to increase 7.48 percent. The $2,725,558.54 increase is equivalent to $612,485,065 dollars of value. That equates to 6,124 homes at $100,000 or 1,531 homes valued at $400,000 each. Quite a mistake, or was it?

Anyone performing this calculation has to know how much was collected in taxes the prior year. I see no way the persons involved in developing these numbers did not know there was a large tax increase.

People who make honest mistakes will almost always quickly correct them. It is noteworthy that the insiders, the Gang of Four being Fake Frankie Waters, Randy Walker, Ed Booth and Jerry Langley did not discuss the increase in taxes during the Commissioners’ meeting, they simply voted not to correct it. Their behavior indicates they intended there to be a tax increase.

Beaufort County is piling up money from overtaxing. While the Gang of Four says we are within our policy for cash reserves there is something else to be known. The Gang of Four removes funds when we reach the upper limit of our goal for reserves. That money goes into another fund so it will not show up as usable reserves. That fund is called the capital reserve. It has about 5 million dollars in it.

Beaufort County can easily reduce taxes by 7.48 per cent this coming year and still give you the ten percent reduction for over taxation. That is a whopping 17.5 percent in overpayment in property taxes.

This tax situation is brought to you by the Beaufort County Republican Party. The Gang of Four is composed of two Democrats and two Republicans which is a majority on our seven-member board. There are five Republicans on the board. Fake Frankie Waters and Randy Walker vote for Democrat Jerry Langley to be Vice Chairman in return for Langley and Democrat Booth to vote for Fake Frankie Waters to be Chairman. It goes deeper than this. The Gang of Four is liberal and vote as big government Democrats. Queen Garris and the Victory Committee do not call this disloyalty. They support RINOs Waters and Walker because it keeps us conservatives down. The three conservatives are myself, Stan Deatherage and Tandy Dunn.

The Victory Committee did not support the lone Republican conservative, Travis Martin, who lost the primary. The only conservative Republican running for commissioner is Stan Deatherage.