Essex County craves sales-tax hike

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February 8, 2012

LOHR McKINSTRY Press-Republican The Press Republican Wed Feb 08, 2012, 02:28 AM EST

ELIZABETHTOWN — Essex County still wants to hike its county sales tax by ¼ percent.

Previous requests have gone nowhere, so the County Board of Supervisors voted this week to again ask the State Legislature for an extra quarter percent in sales tax.

The increased tax is permitted via Home Rule Law legislation, but the state never acted on the county's first two requests.

The county missed the window around 2004 when other counties, including Clinton and Franklin, applied for and received an extra 1 percent tax over the 3 percent they already had.

Instead, Essex County asked for ¾ percent then, making the county sales tax 3¾ percent.

Now they want renewal of that ¾ percent plus the extra ¼ percent, County Attorney Daniel Manning III said.

"All it is is the additional ¼ percent," Manning said. "(It's) for a full (1) percent, from Dec. 31, 2012."

The county now collects a 3¾ percent sales tax, which, coupled with the state's 4 percent, makes the total sales tax 7.75 percent in Essex County.

'EASIER COMPUTATION'

Supervisor Daniel Connell (D-Westport) said he's opposed to the extra ¼ percent, because the county should not be increasing taxes for its populace.

One supervisor, William Ferebee (R-Keene), said he wanted to stress that the county was just renewing the ¾ percent extra it already gets, because the motion included both old and new tax requests.

"We are not looking for another 1 percent," Ferebee said. "This is ¼ percent."

The extra ¼ percent would also make it easier for mom-and-pop businesses to compute the tax, Harrington said, because they're probably figuring the tax manually.

Palmer said that's true.

"If we get our wish, it will be 8 percent (total) in Essex County," Palmer said.

Increasing the county sales tax by ¼ percent would raise about $1.5 million in additional revenue, according to county estimates.

Email Lohr McKinstry at: lmckinstry@pressrepublican.com