Quote:
Originally Posted by Advogado
I'm not sure where you studied economics or ran a business, but before retirement you must have lived in a communist country. In a capitalistic one, competition prevents a seller from simply upping his price to cover increased costs.
The Developer would have had to absorb some or all of the increased impact fees. That is why he had his County Commissioners raise our taxes instead of his impact fees.
In any event, no matter how much of the fees he would have had to absorb, the cost of the increased infrastructure would not have fallen on the existing Sumter County taxpayers.
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I think you're both missing the point. Raising an impact fee to $2000 gets passed to the homeowner. That's fine. The homeowner is now on the hook for an extra $1100 (since there's already a $900 fee built in).
So when he buys the home, then $2000 of the sales price covers the cost of the impact fee. No biggie. Why? Here's why:
Compare to the TAX INCREASE:
The homeowner now pays an extra $xxx (average almost $400) PER YEAR until he sells his home. If he lives in that home 10 years, he's just paid (an average of) $4000 for the same "cost" that the developer would have only paid $2000 for.
The homeowner gets screwed by way of continual costs. The impact fee is a one-time fee. The tax is yearly.