Tourism tax works well for the chamber - not the rest of us
Thank you, Brad Dean, for your letter to the editor responding to my letter, “Get rid of Myrtle Beach council members and useless tourism tax.”
Yes, the tourism tax (TDF) is working very well for the Myrtle Beach Area Chamber of Commerce, providing the chamber more than $20 million this year alone. Plus, the chamber receives 30 percent of the county’s A-Tax money.
The tourism tax should be rescinded because it is regressive. It is not needed because it does not work. And taxes are not for advertising industries, much less not advertising just one industry. Why not advertise our manufacturers?
I have printed all chamber quarterly reports from 2009 through 2015 that supposedly outline TDF expenditures for advertising “out of market,” which, according to the enabling law, simply means out of South Carolina. There is no requirement within the law or within the state of South Carolina’s laws to require audits of taxpayer funds’ expenditures. This means the chamber can write down anything they would like in these reports.
My letter to the editor focused on accommodations taxes collected in our state from 2012 through fiscal year 2016 because at the time I wrote the letter, the Department of Revenue had not provided me, as I had requested, the figures beginning in 2009. I have these figures now.
According to the report I have from the DOR, indeed, as I said, 2012 accommodations taxes were $18,334,209. If Mr. Dean does not like this number, he can talk to the DOR. I will be providing these reports from the DOR to the Myrtle Beach City Council.
Horry County is the only county in the state with this tourism tax, and this city is the only city in the county with this tax. Let’s look back to 2009 when it was enacted. If it is working, why is it that from 2009 through 2016, Horry County’s A-Tax collections increased only 38 percent while Beaufort was 48% percent and Charleston County was 72 percent?
Statewide, the increase was 51 percent - well in excess of our 38 percent. According to the DOR’s reports, Horry went from $14,407,623 to $19,884,491 from 2009 through 2016, an increase of $5,476,868, whereas Charleston County’s A-Tax went from $8,994,828 to $15,427,128, an increase of $6,432,300.
It is erroneous for Mr. Dean to credit the TDF with all increases when these increases have even been exceeded by communities without the tax.
This tax takes from the poor and gives to the rich. It was enacted to include a property tax credit to resident homeowners that some say was an obvious attempt at bribing voters in case it ever came up for a referendum. It was voted in, however, by City Council alone. Resident homeowner voters, placated by the few hundreds they get as a credit, should be appalled to know there is no cap on the credit so a homeowner of a $3 million home is getting a credit this year of $7,679.94! This, while a person living on $7,600 per year shops and pays 1 percent extra for 80 percent of that to go to the chamber, and 20 percent to resident property owners and the city.
Mr. Dean’s bringing up other issues, such as enplanements, is not to his benefit, as many of us are well aware of the deal cut with an airline guaranteeing them profits so we taxpayers were on the hook for thousands to an airline.
A-Tax numbers are a direct indicator of the number of heads on beds. Yes, the TDF is working well for the chamber - but for the rest of us, not so much. It should be rescinded immediately by City Council!
The writer lives in Myrtle Beach.
This story was originally published November 13, 2016 at 5:22 PM with the headline "Tourism tax works well for the chamber - not the rest of us."