Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, April 13, 1990 TAG: 9004130120
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Ed Shamy
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Doug Wilder for president! Elmer Hodge for veep! Roanoke County supervisors for Supreme Court!
Who could believe it? Just a few short months ago we were robbing pizza deliverypersons to pay our taxes, and now we can give them back their anchovies.
Now everybody's rolling in dough, particularly sick Roanoke County property owners.
The General Assembly repealed a 4 1/2 percent tax on non-prescription drugs. Effective in 1992, this bold measure could save each Virginian about $5 per year. Probably less, though, unless you're a Nyquil addict. The sicker you are, the more you save.
But that tax cut is peanuts compared to what's going on in Roanoke County property taxes.
County supervisors, forever vigilant against accumulating too much money for such extravagances as, say, keeping the school system solvent, slashed the rate by a couple of pennies.
To the owner of a home in the county assessed at $80,000, that means $16 a year.
SIXTEEN BUCKS! Big time, baby!
This is supply-side economics in its finest hour. Cut taxes, the consumer spends more, businesses grow plump and expand, they hire more and they pay more taxes. Whatta theory! Whatta life! Whatta tax cut!
Immediately, I rushed to First Team Hyundai, where car salesmen are right now girding for an onslaught of county consumers, where pent-up consumer demand for durable goods is likely to generate a cash windfall.
George Preston, First Team's president, set to work.
Average homeowner buys average Hyundai, worth $8,000, gets the average $750 rebate, gets an average car loan at 11 percent interest, and pays an average $500 down payment.
Preston works the calculator. Hmmm . . . that's a $6,750 loan . . . 48-month loan . . . $174.46 monthly car payment.
But we've got $16 to burn here, tax-cut city, and we'll kick it into our down payment. Preston leans into his calculator again.
Voila! That monthly car payment is now $174.05! What savings - 41 cents per month for 4 years!
A spa, quick, somebody get me a spa! I'll use my tax cut for a spa, a hot tub, a place to soak my tax-wearied bones.
Sixteen bucks isn't a whole lot, said Karin Harlan at Aquarius Pools on Williamson Road. She showed me a sponge headrest to use in the spa I can't afford.
It's $20, she said, but it goes on sale sometimes.
She showed me a 48-inch inflatable ring for my pool, Octopus Print, for $13.68.
I don't have a pool.
But combined, the property tax savings and the non-prescription drug tax savings garner $21 per year.
Hyundai! Spa! A meal for three at Arbys! Call my broker.
Life is good. The Berlin Wall falls, tax rates plummet, fair skies and 75 degrees expected for the rest of the year!
La De Da!
Supply side! Damn the school system, let 'em go broke, I've got $21 to spend - tax cut spoils - and I'm spending it on myself!
Doug Wilder for president. God bless the county supervisors!
***CORRECTION***
Published correction ran on Apr. 14, 1990\ Corrections
Because of a reporting error, George Pelton's name was incorrectly listed in Ed Shamy's column in some Friday editions. Pelton is president of First Team Hyundai, a Peters Creek Road auto dealership.
Memo: Correction