[kappy]

How would you like to save $348 or more every year? Silly question; we all would. It’s simple. That $348 is the amount of tax that the County imposed on your home by the 2019 25% tax increase if your home had a taxable value of $255,700. Of course, that amount will increase or decrease based upon whether the taxable value was more or less than the $255,700 value used in The Villages Daily Sun article on January 13, 2021. Actually that tax payment would increase annually by 3% or the CPI, whichever is lower. If the CPI averaged only 1.5% every year, after 10 years, you would be paying almost $400. And the reason for these payments is the unfair 25% tax increase imposed on all Sumter County homeowners in 2019 due to The Villages expansion below Rt. 44.

The County Commissioners chose to impose that enormous tax increase instead of raising the Sumter County impact fees to the 100% rate from the current 40% rate. The increased costs associated with any new development should be borne by the people who are getting the benefits of that new development. That is, the new homeowners, not homeowners who have already paid for the roads that they are using. Taxes are paid annually; impact fees are paid only once, at the time that each new home is built. Increasing the impact fee to the 100% rate would only add $1458 to each new home built in The Villages That amount will not stop people from buying homes in The Villages.

How do we accomplish this annual tax savings? Just go to the Sumter County website and call or email the Commissioners and let them know that you want them to roll back the 25% tax increase and raise the impact fees to the 100% rate. After all, the road costs generated by the new development below Rt. 44 should be paid for by the beneficiaries of that expansion.