Should Loudoun County Impose a Meals Tax? (Arlington, Charlottesville: townhouse, employment)

[Caladium]

Originally Posted by Carlingtonian

But why bring in more people to a county whose principal charm (or at least one of them, according to Loudounites on this forum) is its rural nature?



The thing is, if you want more of those things, I am positive you will see more subdivisions, perhaps more condos, more highways--and Loudoun will grow to resemble Fairfax County. If that's what the people of Loudoun want, then OK.

Loudoun has a split personality--Eastern Loudoun is keen on growth and zoned for it. Western Loudoun is zoned to retain it's more rural character. This way we have the best of both worlds right here in our county.

[Caladium]

Originally Posted by Carlingtonian

As to a meals tax: Generally speaking, I think it's a relatively painless way to bring in money. If people are going out to eat, that's discretionary. Someone paying $30-$50 for a dinner for two isn't going to find it painful to pay another 5%-10% of the bill. And the meals tax in Arlington and Alexandria (and DC) is 10%. If I lived in Loudoun, I'd be pushing for this as a way to keep my property tax rate low.

Fair enough. If we need more tax revenue, I suppose this would be a lesser of evils. I'm just not convinced that we really need more tax revenue.

[Carlingtonian]

Originally Posted by Caladium

Fair enough. If we need more tax revenue, I suppose this would be a lesser of evils. I'm just not convinced that we really need more tax revenue.

It's your county. I just don't want you to be surprised when your local elected officials try to raise your tax rates, citing the need for more services, due to the growing population. (This is what's been happening in Arlingtax for the last 25 years.)

Also, I wonder if the disparate chacteristics of East vs. West Loudoun that you described could be preserved, if West Loudoun were turned into an agricultural preserve, like they did with the northern half of Montgomery County, MD.

[Caladium]

The way I look at it, the growing population also brings in more people to share the load of paying for services. If we manage our money frugally, the money needed for services should equal or be less than the additional money brought in through the current taxes. One thing that's been very helpful has been getting developers to pay for things like building new schools and road interchanges. Having HOAs instead of incorporated cities has helped, because it's much more efficient to share services rather than create numerous governments for lots of tiny cities.

[sonnymarkjiz]

Originally Posted by Carlingtonian

But why bring in more people to a county whose principal charm (or at least one of them, according to Loudounites on this forum) is its rural nature?

Because East Loudoun is no longer a "rural" county. It's much far from rural and moreso like Fairfax is now, very suburban. Fairfax was just like Western Loudoun is now about 30-40 years ago, and now look at it. People want shopping, entertainment, dining, they have RTC or Tyson's. They want roads to get to places to connect. Otherwise you're going to have all of these people living in an area that has 1 or 2 roads to get out of the county. Case in point, Waxpool Rd going onto 28, aka Ashburn's ONLY artery out of the city (besides 7 or DTR).

With that being said, I like WESTERN Loudoun as a rural nature too. I think they should preserve that, but eastern Loudoun and western Loudoun are wayyyyyy two totally different beasts. They've already approved Loudoun and Moorefield Stations, which will make Reston useless to many who still go there. Whether you like it or not, they're going to build that region of Loudoun as the next "big" thing. So yes, with all that coming up, I feel like the "charm" of Loudoun will definitely be driven to western loudoun. Loudoun is a HUGE county....HUGE.

And, again, I do see your point. For the people in Eastern Loudoun, paying a premium in taxes won't be an issue. But for anyone living west of Purcelville, I can definitely see an uproar in increases for people not near or in the boom of the eastern part of the county.

[cdmurphy]

We need more tax revenue because we can't pay for stuff. We are one of only four counties in Virginia that doesn't have full-day kindergarten. The proposal to start phasing it in got axed in this round of budget haggling. The bus drivers are threatening to strike because the county wants to cut their benefits (yes, for part-time it's great that they have benefits, but the county only started offering them because Prince William did it, and they were losing people, and even with the benefits they still can't keep enough people). Part of the problem lies within the school board and the administration itself, and believe me, I've often wondered where the heck the 75% of my property tax dollars are going when the district does things like start charging kids $200 for a parking permit and $100 per sport to play sports (on top of everything else the athletes have to pay for), and then a magical surplus appears from somewhere and they decide to spend $4 million of it on interactive whiteboards, or they decide to spend a questionable amount of money to acquire land for a new school at several times the market rate. (Sorry for the rant, but time and time again I'm horrified by our county government and the school system, and the relationship between them.)

[Denton56]

Originally Posted by sonnymarkjiz

It would be an awful idea in Loudoun County. Then again, Loudoun is just about saving all the money they can....for......virtually nothing. Without new business in Loudoun, how do they expect the county to grow so it will actually have a population? This isn't the 1960's anymore where Loudoun was virtually ALL farmland, this is a booming area right on the verge of a booming tech business scene. They should not do this and encourage all businesses to move into the county by not giving businesses a meal tax, it's silly!

This same idea of thinking is a reason why the Silver Line Metro Stations are up in the air. What are we saving all this money on if none of this stuff ever gets complete? More McMansions and Harris Teeters? No to the Meals Tax.

What money are we saving? Is Loudoun county charging such high real estate taxes that they have millions of extra dollars sitting around looking for a place to spend it? If that's so, the money should be returned to the taxpayers.

There will be no meals tax. We're a Dillion rule state which means that the state would have to change the laws and allow the counties to impose a meals tax. That will not happen, therefore we will not have a meals tax.

[Caladium]

If they can spell out specifically what the tax will be used for, I'll be more interested in it. The problem is, adding new taxes won't help if the money won't be used for practical needs. It will just become part of the next "magical surplus" and be used for something like planting civil war commemoration trees along Rt. 15.

At which point some people will say "Obviously we need yet another tax, and then we will have another magical surplus." And so on and so on.

[Caladium]

Originally Posted by Carlingtonian

Also, I wonder if the disparate chacteristics of East vs. West Loudoun that you described could be preserved, if West Loudoun were turned into an agricultural preserve, like they did with the northern half of Montgomery County, MD.

I'm not sure how Montgomery County's zoning laws are different from ours. FWIW, I think Loudoun's zoning laws are doing a good job keeping the western character. Of course, those who live out there may know better than me. I don't tend to think of Loudoun as agricultural, per se. Maybe on a small scale, but I've always had the impression that most of the land in western Loudoun is wineries, horse property, family homes with acreage, rich people who want a place to be "gentlemen farmers" and small specialty farms (25 alpacas, not 50 acres of soybeans).

[Carlingtonian]

Originally Posted by cdmurphy

We need more tax revenue because we can't pay for stuff. We are one of only four counties in Virginia that doesn't have full-day kindergarten. The proposal to start phasing it in got axed in this round of budget haggling. The bus drivers are threatening to strike because the county wants to cut their benefits (yes, for part-time it's great that they have benefits, but the county only started offering them because Prince William did it, and they were losing people, and even with the benefits they still can't keep enough people). Part of the problem lies within the school board and the administration itself, and believe me, I've often wondered where the heck the 75% of my property tax dollars are going when the district does things like start charging kids $200 for a parking permit and $100 per sport to play sports (on top of everything else the athletes have to pay for), and then a magical surplus appears from somewhere and they decide to spend $4 million of it on interactive whiteboards, or they decide to spend a questionable amount of money to acquire land for a new school at several times the market rate. (Sorry for the rant, but time and time again I'm horrified by our county government and the school system, and the relationship between them.)

Wow! Some of that sounds like Arlingstan. (But I won't hijack the thread.) OK, so what you've laid out seems like a compelling argument to me for a meals tax--except that if the muni government is so corrupt and inept, would more money even help?

The easiest taxes of all for cities/counties to pass are the taxes on hotel rooms and rental cars--because none of the constituents pay them.