True Revenue Situation

  • Friday, April 28, 2017
My honorable and respected friend Roy Exum tells us again today, “It has been 12 years since the county fathers have approved a tax increase ... .” I’ll take his word for that, but want some more information. “No tax increase for 12 years” is just the chorus; I want to hear the rest of the song, the specific verses that really tell the tale.

The fact is, although Roy’s bare statement may be technically correct, it doesn’t convey the whole truth of the situation. Graduates of (or dropouts from) the Hamilton County school system might accept it as meaning the Hamilton County government hasn’t had an increase in tax revenue – an increase in income – in twelve years.
But there’s more than that to the story.


Every new home built in the county in the last 12 years has added to the total tax receipts. New homes typically cost more than existing homes, so each new home adds even more proportionately to county income. Yes, many new homes also contribute new students (expenses, liabilities) to the county schools. But new homes are also bought by retired folks who haven’t had any new kids for decades, and don’t add any other liabilities to the county’s burden; they’re just putting all their eggs into one last basket, intending to leave only when they’re carried out feet first.

I’ve searched the Internet, trying to find two specific numbers for every recent year, but apparently I’m not asking the right questions or not looking in the right places, or the information is hidden beyond my search capabilities. Online public records currently go back to 1999 on an individual property basis, but it’s slow going to collect all of that data. The county offices already know the sum total of them all for every year, right down to the penny. 

The two real numbers I want to see are the Hamilton County tax rate for each year from, say, 1999 through 2016, and the total county property tax receipts for each of those years. Those two simple figures will probably show that Roy is correct in his basic statement, but that it's not really indicative of the true county tax revenue situation.

If anyone is willing and able to find and publish those numbers, while you’re at it please get the same information for the city of Chattanooga. Chattanooga residents know that the city tax bill nearly equals the county’s demands.

Publish the total property tax revenue for all to see and we can form our own opinions as to whether or not there’s been a tax increase in the last 12 years.

Give us the raw numbers, the simple one-number total of property tax collections for each year. After that you can factor in inflation, deflation, stagnation, population growth, and whatever else might please you. But give us the raw data first, with no fudging and no spin. I suspect we'll see that the general trend is ever and always upward.

And we taxpayers aren’t favorably impressed with government arguments that things keep costing more. We know that things keep costing us more, too, and all we can do is tighten our belts and hang in there; we don’t have the prerogative of demanding that someone else make up the shortfall in our personal budgets. 

Larry Cloud
Lookout Valley
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