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9 <br />Election considerations <br />• The transfer tax has failed in other jurisdictions, due to large expenditures by <br />special interests to defeat the tax <br />• The sales tax has passed in some jurisdictions <br />• Very steep learning curve to educate residents about a transfer tax in Orange <br />County as compared to sales tax <br />• Neither tax will succeed without strong support by commissioners individually <br />• Fall General Election and January Special Election results: The transfer tax failed in <br />all 16 counties (average 79% opposed), Sales Tax approved in 6 counties (and one <br />county failed to rescind its current sales tax), all 6 counties placing both measures <br />on the ballot saw both fail. May Primary (to date): 14 sales tax, 2 transfer tax, 2 <br />undecided, none with both measures. <br />General Comments <br />• The committee and the public who attended the committee meetings believed very <br />strongly that Orange County needs to make real progress on economic <br />development, including solutions to our retail leakage to adjacent counties. <br />• The transfer tax option and the sales tax option are not based on ability to pay, <br />regardless of economic status. This is also true of the existing ad valorem property <br />tax. <br />• Slowing of Economic Growth may reduce revenue from either tax option. Property <br />tax is most stable over time. <br />• One of these options would allow the county commissioners to diversify how they <br />collect taxes and not rely completely on a property tax. <br />• There was interest by some of the group that the state legislature should amend the <br />enabling legislation to permit a transfer tax on value added (rather than entire sales <br />price). <br />• There was interest by the group that the commissioners could mitigate a transfer tax <br />similar to the school impact fee reimbursement <br />Questions that remain: <br />• What portion of resold homes were resold at a loss in Orange County in the last <br />one, two, and five years? <br />• What was the average gain on homes in Orange County over the last x years? <br />• What would a transfer tax in Orange County have raised in 2007 if it were in place? <br />2006? <br />0 Ditto for sales tax.