From a letter to the editor in Monday morning’s Virginian Pilot:
There is a solution to eliminating the rising property tax. Initiate a payroll tax (it worked for several cities in Michigan) 1 percent if you live and work in Virginia Beach and 0.5 percent if you live here but work in another city.
Ah, the innocence of another transplant to Hampton Roads. I swear – the Pilot needs to post a weekly reminder that Virginia operates under the Dillon Rule and the localities just can’t implement stuff like this without legislative approval. It is why the localities are so over-reliant on the real estate tax as a source of revenue.
As for voting out the Virginia Beach council – I suggest the letter writer aim a little higher. Until we get state legislators who are willing to loosen the Dillon Rule, the hands of the localities are tied. Changing the council won’t change that one bit.
VIVIAN J. PAIGE | All Politics is Local 
The Pilot really should, as you suggest, post a notice re: the Dillon Rule. Below each dreamy LTE there should be an “*” where the “*” is labeled “This is a Dillon Rule state. Localities can’t do shit like this.”
But I do have a question re: this suggestion of a payroll tax. Shouldn’t the folks living in one jurisdiction but working in another pay the larger tax? I know DC tried to do something this a few years back to help pay for some of their roads that so many Marylanders and Virginians use.
Sorry – your comment got hung up in my spam filter.
A lot of states have local income taxes to get the folks that use the services (like roads) to help pay for them. I think there is an argument for either solution (regarding who should pay the higher tax, residents or nonresidents) or for the rates to be the same.
Denver had a ‘head tax’ for years. I am unaware if it still exists. If you worked in Denver but lived elsewhere, you paid a payroll tax.
Elsewhere, outside the stupid Dillon Rule nonsense, things like water districts and transportation districts are allowed, and are operated by local citizenry, and don’t require the state’s permission.
These are just examples, of course.
We get to have a dump in tiny Cumberland County, mostly because that’s the opportunity that can be exploited without a lot of permission from someone in the legislature. As it is, the trash industry has powerful friends. If the county could even put on a meals tax they could raise some money. It works for Farmville, who, as a town can levy these sorts of revenue raisers.
If the Commonwealth paid for the things they require of counties, towns and cities, the property taxes would go down $.10. Prisons, Social Services, some Health Department mandates, all are required by the state, but not fully paid for by the state.
I’ll look up the 2000 study that talked about this.
Sorry Mark – your comment got hung up in the spam filter, too.
Please do link that survey.
Walk down memory lane.
Grew up in Michigan and remember filing that city income tax form right along with the fed and state one. Was not that much of a tax, but that might have something to do with my $1.25 minimum wage burger job!
I prefer the car tax — it’s purely voluntary. I can drive an old clunker and not pay anything!! 🙂
Vivian –
The study that Connie Brennan was using is actually more than one study. This is one of them:
(PDF)Cooper Center
Lloyd Snook’s article on the plan:
Democratic Central – Connie Brennan’s Property Tax Relief Act
Link for above cite:
HJ 578ER (1999)
More at Democratic Central.