40-70% of vacant units exempt from vacancy tax and other things anti advocates will not tell you, Report for City Council Tuesday evening meeting

 This came in my email this AM from proponents of the Vacancy Tax

"According to the report, there may be 8,100 vacant homes, more vacant homes than occupied" in South Lake Tahoe

The City of South Lake Tahoe just released a report studying the fiscal and other impacts of the Tahoe Vacancy Tax. The report is now available to read and will be presented at Tuesday evening's City Council Meeting. The good news - the facts of the policy are on our side! The report makes it clear that the Vacancy Tax would raise tens of millions of dollars each year for local housing, roads, and transit to benefit the community and fund the City's strategic plan. The bad news is the report includes some biased assumptions and misleading wording, which we expect the opposition to quote out of context at Tuesday's meeting. [CofA: I bet that includes that 80 year old woman who worked all her life to have a second home in South Lake Tahoe and now can't afford the tax, as she's brought up just about every time an anti tax person speaks..... now it looks like she'd be EXEMPT anyway, if she exists. ] * Here are some of the pro tax group's initial observations from the report

A The City used property taxes to estimate vacancies rather than the US Census and found up to 1,000 additional vacancies. According to the report, there may be more than 8,100 vacant homes (PDF page 4 & 27 ) - meaning there may actually be more vacant than occupied homes in SLT, using the report's number of 16k total residential units (page 15)

B The report anticipates the Vacancy Tax will boost the local economy by providing new housing for an estimated 540-1,453 permanent residents. The City estimates these residents will generate an additional $235,000 to $670,000 in new annual sales tax revenue alone (page 5).

C Reverse engineering the above figures using our 8.75% sales tax rate, this corresponds to up to nearly $8 million in additional annual retail spending. The report neglected, however, to study how these local workers would fill staffing shortages, further enabling business growth

D The City used very conservative estimates throughout, assuming that 40-70% of vacant units would be exempt from the tax, and that only 60% of the remainder would make their required payments (page 4). They also chose not to count any revenue at all from penalties paid by those who failed to comply.

E Even with the very conservative estimates (above), the City *still* forecasted new revenue of $10-$33 million annually by year two (PDF page 37, report page 22).

F The report details how Vacancy Tax revenue can fund our Regional Housing Needs Assessment goals and more widely increase housing availability (page 8-9)

G Earlier this year, the City said that lack of funding is the biggest barrier to implementing new housing programs at their housing pubic forum

And More:

Read the Report

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