Growls

The Arlington County Board will likely vote on Saturday, March 12, to advertise a real estate tax rate with an "effective tax rate increase" of 10.5%, based upon the "Board Report" for agenda item 34 on Saturday's agenda (requires Adobe Reader; ref. attachment V). This increase assumes a cut of 5 cents in the real estate tax rate although the Board can cut the rate more than the Manager's proposed 5 cents. Since the assessed value of overall real property, excluding new construction, increased 16.6% (residential and commercial), the county would have to lower the real estate tax rate to 82.2 cents per $100 of assessed value to produce the same amount of real estate tax revenue as last year. The "Board Report" for agenda item 34 contains three attachments which contain useful information of how Arlington's overall tax base is divided between residential and commercial property as well as a historical record of tax rates and average assessments. Regular readers of Growls may recall that we previously growled about the Manager's proposed budget, noting the 5 cent tax rate cut would still result in a 17.5% increase in the average tax bill for residential property owners; the 10.5% increase refers to the overall tax base (residential and commercial). To use the words of talk radio host Sean Hannity, "now more than ever" it's important for every Arlington homeowner to tell the County Board to lower the real estate tax rate in a meaningful way, and that means cutting it by more than a measly 5 cents.