Sales tax increase

Governor Perdue and Budget Director Charlie Perusse

As of September 1, 2009, our state sales tax has been increased by 1%. "Senate Bill 202 was ratified by the House of Representatives and the Senate on August 5, 2009 and has been signed by Governor Perdue."  For those in Mecklenburg County, this means that your typical sales tax (excluding groceries) will be 8.25%, and 9.25% for restaurants. This bill is in effect until July of 2011.

So where is all this money going? Despite a combined reduction in spending between the American Recovery and Investment Act of 2009 and the Current Operations - Highway Fund of $1,647,988,745, there is an overall increase in state spending of exactly 1% from the 2009-2010 fiscal year to 2010-2011 fiscal year. The additional tax covers the following increases: $75,503,387 to education, specifically community colleges and state funded universities; $723,004,774 to Health and Human Services; $1,253,255,610 to Natural and Economic Resources.

Under the heading of General Government, you will find Department of Administration to be receiving a two year total of $138,269,556. This total is only exceeded by the Department of Revenue, the Department of Cultural Resources, the Reserve for State Health Plan, and General Debt Services. 

Under the heading of Current Operations and Expansion - Highway Fund, Administration is listed on the top again with a combined two year total of $162,707,795. Furthermore, under the Division of Highways heading, there is another Administration cost of $65,932,160. It is unclear in this bill if this administration cost is pulled from the total administration cost under the main heading. There is only one line that has a greater cost under this heading that is greater than the administration costs: Other State Agencies, Reserves, and Transfers with a budget of $589,479,955. While the Reserves and Transfers portion of this line are understandable, there is no definition linked to "Other State Agencies".

One thing I did not find was any reference to our current economic crisis, or how the State of North Carolina finds it to be moral or ethical to increase any tax rate during a recession with an ever increasing unemployment rate. However, I did find that there will be an increase of 61 jobs in Mecklenburg County of over the next five years by the expansion of SCR-Tech LLC into Charlotte.