Assessed values in the City of Charlottesville and County of Albemarle are up across the board and now the respective localities have voted to increase taxes – The City is raising is meals tax 1% and the County is raising the property tax rate from 79 cents to 82 cents per $100 of assessed value.
If the County would devote that money to infrastructure, and have a sunset clause on that rate, I’d be in favor of paying a little bit more in taxes.
Curious – will you consider the new, higher meals tax in the City when choosing where to eat out?
Keep in mind that the Albemarle County budget is still effectively .10 less per $100 due to the revenue sharing agreement with the City of Charlottesville. You can read the actual revenue sharing agreement at cvillenews.
The county went from 79.9 cents/$100 to 81.9 cents/$100. If you’re going to round, you should round them both the same way. This post makes it seem like a 3-cent increase when it’s “only” a 2-cent increase.
As to your question, probably not. I would expect the county to follow next year to keep the parity that has existed for a while for meals taxes between the jurisdictions.
1 – Fair point.
2 – I don’t know – I think Stonefield will benefit some from the meals tax increase …
Short term yes, I think Stonefield being where it is will see some benefit. But folks aren’t going to stop going to the Alley Light over 1%. Folks who work downtown aren’t going to get into cars and go elsewhere for lunch, for example.
No, I don’t think the 1% meals increase will change my mind about where to go out (part of that being my fuzziness on where the city limits are). It could impact how much people leave for a tip, I suppose. Not fair, but…
The tax increase seems to be necessary given the lack of the kind of infrastructure many people expect, especially in areas designated as “growth.” People buying new houses will pay for the roads, sidewalks, utilities and such they want; if not through taxes then by the creation of gated communities and the like. Do we want to live in a community where the affluent can buy sidewalks but the rest of us can’t? It just increases the gap between rich and middle and poorer groups. I’d prefer to live in a place we can all share the amenities through fair taxes, spent responsibly for long-term benefits.