My city could nearly eliminate property taxes — if the Idaho Legislature would let us | Opinion

This November, residents of the city of Ammon will vote on whether to enact a $1,250,000 street levy. Necessary street rebuilds, repairs and maintenance are expensive, and the requested ask for the levy does not nearly address the needs of the city.

Ammon is a city of over 20,000 people, but it has one of the lowest levy rates in the state at 0.0011. Because of this and the rising cost of law enforcement, Ammon has no dedicated funding source for streets. But we certainly have a need. That's what we're trying to fix.

However, rather than raising property taxes, Idaho should grant local option taxing authority to all Idaho communities. Currently, only resort towns of 10,000 or less have this authority, as long as at least 60% of its residents vote in favor. In other words, 179 of Idaho's 201 communities are barred from asking their voters to approve a local sales tax in addition to the state sales tax.

Idaho should give the residents of all communities the right to vote on an up to 1% local option sales tax, so long as half of it is spent on essential city functions such as needed infrastructure improvements including roads and bridges, law enforcement, or fire protection, and the remaining half is used to reduce dollar-for-dollar property taxes within that community.

If the Legislature is really serious about property tax relief and rebuilding local infrastructure, it could do both with this one move. And what does this really mean for a city like Ammon?

Imagine if Ammon residents could vote on a 1% local sales tax, bringing the sales tax in Ammon to a total of 7%. Estimates show that this 1% increase could raise roughly $3.8 million per year.

Half of $3.8 million is $1.9 million, which means that Ammon would not need to request a street levy tax increase from its residents and would have a solid head start on a dedicated street funding source. The other $1.9 million would reduce property taxes in the city. Considering that Ammon's existing tax levy generates approximately $2.23 million a year, city property taxes could be nearly eliminated. In other words, both sides of this coin would result in significant property tax relief for Ammon residents.

What does it mean on the sales tax front? Ammon has a prominent retail sector that attracts many shoppers from outside of Ammon and even outside the state. A local sales tax under my proposal would shift the tax burden from Ammon residents to many times the number of our residents (including outside visitors), thereby dramatically reducing overall impact.

Cities like Bellevue, Bonners Ferry, Cascade, Crouch, Donnelly, Driggs, Hailey, Irwin, Kellogg, Ketchum, Lava Hot Springs, Mackay, McCall, Ponderay, Riggins, Salmon, Stanley, Sun Valley, Swan Valley and Victor have already done what I'm proposing-using local option sales taxes to maintain and repair infrastructure such as streets, or for property tax relief.

So the bottom line is this — if your community could generate the money needed for existing street needs without raising property taxes, and also significantly reduce the property tax burden, in exchange for a 1% sales tax increase largely paid for by visiting shoppers, would you support such a change?

If so, let your legislators know.

Sean Coletti is the mayor of Ammon, a city in Bonneville County.