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Comparing the Development
Tax and Impact Fees
Tennessee Advisory Commission
on Intergovernmental Relations, TACIR, Staff Research Brief:
PAYING FOR GROWTH:
GENERAL ASSEMBLY AUTHORIZATIONS
FOR DEVELOPMENT TAXES AND IMPACT FEES
Nancy Allen, Rutherford
County Execttive is a TACIR member. see p. 18 of Brief.
An Impact Fee is a fee that the
payor is guaranteed to receive a direct benefit from. If you
are a member of an organization or a club, you pay a membership
fee. You receive a direct benefit from that fee ... whether it
be for use of a club's athletic facilities or current information
and services from a professional organization.
An impact fee will allow the
bills to be paid up front, rather than making the County Commissioners
scramble each year to find the money necessary to balance the
budget.
There are guarantees built in
to protect those paying the fees ... the money has to be used
for the purpose for which it was intended and it has to be spent
within a specific period of time.
Impact fees are only imposed one time on new residential, commercial
and industrial development, thus increasing the attractiveness
and affordability of existing housing and commercial space.
Empty houses, stores and warehouses will get used again.
We've entered a new phase in
Rutherford County where the leadership and stewardship abilities
of our commissioners will be tested. There are special interest
groups that may try to dissuade them from this path, but it is
incumbant on our elected officials to look at the facts, to look
at the benefits of an Impact Fee on new development and how they
will solve the enormous fiscal needs that this county will face
in the next decades.
Impact Fees are not
a band-aid. They are the cure!
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