Save $348 Or More Every year
 

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.

Can you post contact details here (web page, telephone number, e-mail address) to save everyone having to look them up individually.

Thank you

Why didn’t you share?

Sumter County Commissioners email addresses

Gary.Search@sumtercountyfl.gov
Craig.Estep@sumtercountyfl.gov
oren.miller@sumtercountyfl.gov

There was a more recent article in the Daily Sun about the recent meeting at Everglades Rec Center about the impact fee. Apparently there are several categories of construction that pay the impact fee. The developer of over 55 housing pays one rate. The developer or builder of housing outside of the over 55 development pay a higher fee. The highest impact fee is paid by commercial and retail businesses. The article claimed that the county can not just raise the impact fee on the developer; the percent fee increase occurs across the board on all categories of development. We need more commercial development. We need more housing for workers in the county. We need more retail for those living south of 44. There is a huge UF Health hospital/research development that is approved but in jeopardy if the impact fee on their development goes up.

The increase in taxes was not enormous considering there was NO increase for 14 years. I believe that county network roads should be paid for by the county. The developer should pay for roads WITHIN the residential areas of his development. I like the improvement of the roads from Morse south of 44 down to 501 and then to 470 to the turnpike.

DO the MATH................100% rate in impact fee will not cover the lost property tax revenue generated by the 25%.


Clueless!!!!

So what would have been the result is the county had raised taxes every year up to last year instead or holding them for 10 or so years, would have cost even more. Our taxes did not go up 25% in Marion County but I did follow this last year.

I have nothing to share. I was merely suggesting to the OP that if he made it easy for people to follow his advice then more people would do so.

Do you realize why there was no increase in the County rate for 14 years? For the same reason that we had a 4% rate reduction last year. The growth of The Villages generates enough additional tax revenue every year to allow for a reduction. And the growth of The Villages is what will keep new businesses flocking to Sumter County.

You will pay one way or another

Exactly. :bigbow:

Okay in that case if it wasn't enormous please pay mine also out of your pocket the point is if you really look at the budget they increased spending by $50 million since I could use up the taxes that they collected for last year if they kept to a similar budget and use the money that was elected if there was a 100% infrastructure tax it would have been fairer as so many people like to always say fair tax fair tax fair tax

So how is that $348 a year is going to affect your life? I’ll take the better roads!

Yes we will pay one way or the other but I prefer the other way which is the infrastructure tax, which is how every other county in Florida does it

It was a fair tax increase. County network roads are used by and available for all residents and visitors to the county. Thus they should be funded by the county.

You could have the better roads AND the $348.

Check out the county taxes in other counties and in other states! You will see that Sumter County is still a DEAL! The mistake that they made was not raising taxes for so many years when everything was new. Now that things are needing to be repaired, they do not have the capital reserves to pay for it. Let's keep it the way it is and explore again the different possibilities for increasing revenue and reserves so that we do not get into this mess in the future!

“ 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. “

So if I understand what your saying is that since you already paid for YOUR roads and I should be paying for MY roads then I shouldn’t see you south of 44 since I’m benefiting from this development. That means don’t come to Fenney putt and play, don’t come to Ednas, don’t come to any other new features south of 44 because you don’t feel you need to pay for improvements since you paid YOUR SHARE.

Sounds like another entitled selfish person in Americans “friendliest” home town.
SMH

I may not understand this completely, but when I moved to The Villages there was a bond attached to each property which supposedly was to pay for the infrastructure of the village in which you lived. New homes still have bonds, which I understand are now higher than they ever were, along with impact fees. So why the need for the twenty five percent increase. You have a continually increasing tax base without a significant increase in costs as there are no schools that have to be built or police stations as these are county. Roads do not need to be plowed like up north. You have a fire department that does have to be funded but not much else. In other words the tax base is increasing through expansion much more rapidly than costs. To me the math does not add up. It seems like there is a lot of double dipping going on meaning there appears to be multiple revenue streams paying for the same expenses. All this money has to be going somewhere.

Bonds do not pay for roads.

Thank you ; that’s exactly what I’ve been telling everyone. They just don’t get it.

I'm just totally disgusted with now THREE articles in the paper, ALL ONE SIDED?! Again, when the 25% tax increase was introduced, and many people spoke out against it, where were the articles in the paper???

Impact Fees
 

Impact fees should be paid by contractors and the traffic/road/business infrastructure should be included in the planning and development of any new regional or subdivision construction.

Why should everyone in northern section of TV pay for the roads in the southern section?

The way to get this done is EVERYONE who reads this email write to these commissioners and speak your piece. There is no reason in the world that the developer shouldn't be paying for the roads leading to HIS houses that HE'S selling and HE'S making a $100K+ on each one of them. HE can surely afford it. In the real world it's called the cost of doing business and the costs he doesn't want to absorb are passed on to those who will gain from those improvements, not those that have nothing to do with them.

Isn't this true every where???.............there are hundreds of miles of county roads in Southern Sumter I'll never drive on, but my county taxes pay for them. Same is true for federal intrastate roads funded by federal dollars.

I'm good with that. We have ALL the restaurants, country clubs, squares, pools, rec centers etc. we need. Even if you don't want us down there, we're glad to have you spend your money up here

Thanks for the contact information I sent out message to all three commissioners.

I'm good with that. We have ALL the restaurants, country clubs, squares, pools, rec centers etc. we need. Even if you don't want us down there, we're glad to have you spend your money up here. :boom:

So there has been no tax increase in 10-14 years, eh? And my tax was finally raised 94.5 cents a day...okay, round it off to $1 a day. And I’m supposed to get my shorts in a knot? That’s so below the inflation rate over 10-14 years. What kind of a scholar would get so jacked up over this when in fact our society is on the verge of implosion. I guess humans need a glass house to throw stones at..or a war..or just be ****ed off at something..like the quality of the grass on a certain golf course. Keeps the blood flowing. Ever hear of the law of unintended consequences? My God, for 94.5 cents a day...okay, call it a buck!

Sumter County consists of more than just The Villages, even though TV has the largest population in the county. Other communities in the county include Wildwood, Lake Panasoffkee, Sumterville, Bushnell, Center Hill, Coleman, and Webster. While these are small in population, the people that live in these communities also use the network roads to travel to work, to shop, to medical appointments, etc. These county network roads are not improved just to make it easier for Villagers to get to and between different Villages.

Then you shouldn't come to the Sharon , Savannah Center etc. since you never paid for any of these roads.

Besides the fact that someone is reaching into your pockets for 94.5 cents per day, there is a principle involved here. The proper action that the Commissioners should have taken in 2019 was to not give the developer a 60% reduction in the impact fees and not raised the taxes on all the existing homeowners who have already paid their impact fees when their homes were built. That’s double taxation. It’s now time to right the wrong done in 2019.

Businesses don't pay taxes. The purchasers of those business' products/services pay the taxes. A business has to make a certain level of profit in order to keep the doors open and to turn a profit for investors. If increased taxes cut into the needed profit then the business will increase the cost of their product/service and pass on that extra cost onto the consumer. We the consumer will pay for the increased taxes. So simple that a simple minded caveman can understand it, hopefully.

I have written our Commissioners stating my opposition to impact fees as proposed.

Misleading
 

This message is misleading on several points. For one thing property tax is NOT indexed to CPI. In fact, property taxes were reduced for 10 consecutive years and they have been decreased again this past year.

Impact fees are not only applied to residential property, by state law, they must be applied to ALL property being developed. The biggest negative impact will be on commercial property development. This not only applies to businesses that service Village residents, it applies to all business locating in Sumter County. Why should a manufacturering or distribution company, for example, locate in Sumter County and pay higher impact fees for the privilege. Surounding counties have learned the hard way that high impact fees discourage companies from building in their county. We want businesses to locate in Sumter County. The more businesses there are in Sumter County paying property taxes, the less individual homeowners have to pay to run the county.

Ultimately the goal should be that factories and wharehouses and distribution businesses, etc., not homeowners, should be contributing a larger share of the total costs of running the county. That will provide real long term relief from higher property taxes.

Think and understand the REAL issue and don't be fooled by slogans and one-sided rhetoric.

Maybe Marion county already has the highest taxes in area? I think I pay more in school tax than Sumter county residents pays for all taxes? You can’t have all that construction and still pay the lowest taxes in area?

Is there a proposal???
(i thought no action was taken)

Somebody needs to buy a punctuation mark!! LoL!!

Nope, but I went on record I oppose it. The triade ran on the issue of higher impact fees and rollback of taxes and I assume that will be their position so wanted them to know I oppose anything that will slow growth and attract new business. I have been down that road to many times before (on both sides, looking where to expand our business and the impact to my community when business expenses were raised). As stated earlier in this thread if a business decides to move here their expenses will be passed on the customers if they can make a profit. If it's iffy, they will locate at more friendly location. They will make the decisions in the best interest of the business and State and County government can make that attractive or not. Just stated my view when I wrote them.