Reproduced from The Post and Courier, Charleston, SC (used with permission)
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James Is. tax bills disputed

By: ARLIE PORTER    
Originally Published on: 10/11/95
Page: A15

    
    
    
    About 14,000 property tax bills sent to James Island residents are too low and need to be canceled, Charleston County officials said Tuesday.
    The bills include a property tax credit, requested by the town of James Island, which lowers the amount of taxes residents pay. In all, residents would pay about $600,000 less.
    The problem: The James Island Public Service District expected to receive that money for its operations this year.
    ``The town wanted to do something to roll back taxes for its residents and this (the tax credit) was a way to do it. But they did it without the district's knowledge,'' said Trent Kernodle, the public service district's attorney.
    ``We expect the county to pay us what we were promised to be paid because it wasn't our mistake,'' Kernodle said.
    So what's a James Island resident to do?
    Residents who already have paid their bills likely will receive another bill charging them for the sales tax credit they didn't have to pay in the first bill.
    The same goes for residents who pay their bills this week.
    Those who wait - and they have until January - will get new tax bills in about two weeks, if a circuit judge rules the earlier bills are invalid, County Attorney Arthur Rosenblum said.
    So how did this happen?
    It began with the incorporation of the town of James Island nearly three years ago. The town's boundaries included the James Island PSD, which provides fire, sanitation and trash pickup services.
    The city of Charleston challenged the town's incorporation, and the city's lawsuit ballooned into a bitter battle over power and money that is expected to be settled by the state Supreme Court.
    But the city won a major victory three weeks ago, when a judge ruled the town of James Island was not legal. That ruling threw into question whether the town's rebates were legal.
    Well before the ruling, however, town Mayor Joan Sooy had asked Charleston County officials to approve rolling back property taxes for town residents to return local option sales tax money.
    County Administrator Ed Fava approved the request last December, and county Auditor Peggy Moseley set up a new taxing district for town of James Island residents.
    The town, however, doesn't have a property tax, so it couldn't offer a tax rebate. As a result, the town proposed giving rebates to PSD residents who are in the town.
    The problem was that not only was there a state attorney general's opinion that a town cannot distribute tax money to a public service district, but the district wasn't told it could lose the money.
    Now the county will ask a judge to void the 14,000 bills that already have been sent out, Rosenblum said. If approved, new bills on a $100, house on James Island would be $103 more; the bill on a $75,000 house would go up by $76.

Reproduced from The Post and Courier, Charleston, SC (used with permission)

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