Editor, Gazette-Journal:
In 2014, Mathews supervisors imposed a 15 percent increase in the real estate rate, knowing that a reassessment would be going into effect on Jan. 1, 2017. The Commissioner of the Revenue and Supervisor Jack White want to deceive the taxpayers by indicating “they have no knowledge of the increase/decrease this will bring about.” Well, gentlemen, ask the assessors to publish the sales/assessment ratio they performed before the reassessment and we all will know.
The county government knows well that the meal tax is a regressive tax. A regressive tax affects people with low incomes more severely than people with high incomes and those citizens will pay for “ham biscuits” for the rest of their lives.
The Mathews County Administrator stated that “a $10 meal would only be $.40.” Well, that meal already costs $.53, but they fail to tell you the total meal tax will be $.93 for the $10 meal, that is 5.3 percent state and 4 percent loc...