Property Tax Bills

We received the property tax bill for our house.

There was a new line--Town of James Island.   It was all zeros.   The Town millage was zero, the amount of Tax owed the Town was zero, and the percent of the total property tax going to the Town was zero.

This was mostly correct.   The Town millage is not zero, it is 20 mills.  However, because Town Council approved a sufficiently large tax credit, the amount owed the Town is zero and the percent of taxes going to the Town is zero.

There was a note added to the bill that explained this.   The language was agreed to by the County Auditor and the Town.   (It was approved by the Town Administrator and myself, as Mayor.)

Some months ago, I asked the County Auditor if it would be possible to show the Town's millage on the tax bill, as well as the amount of the municipal tax credit the Town would provide to reduce the amount of taxes each taxpayer pays the Town  to zero.   He said that they could do that.    Both the County Auditor and I thought that it would be easy.  Unfortunately, the County's software is not as easy to modify as we thought.   Making the modifications would take several months.   Both the County Auditor and I agreed that delaying the tax bills to people in the Town for months was unacceptable.   And so, the result was as a tax bill showing an incorrect zero millage.

The County Auditor is having their software company develop an upgrade so that next year's tax bill will be accurate.   I offered to pay the cost, which is estimated to be a few thousand dollars.   The Auditor explained that was not necessary and that it is his judgement that the County tax billing software should have this capability.  Next year, the tax bills should be accurate.