By Leah Justice

leah.justice@tryondailybulletin.com

Saluda property owners should soon see their city and county taxes on one bill and benefit from a discount if they pay their taxes in July or August.

Saluda City Council held a special meeting on Monday, March 30 and approved Polk County collecting its taxes, pending county attorney Bailey Nager approving of the contract.

Once Saluda’s mayor and the Polk County Board of Commissioners sign a contract, Polk County will begin collecting the City of Saluda’s property taxes beginning July 1 this year.

Saluda first discussed the possibility of the county collecting its taxes during its March 9 meeting. Polk County Tax Administrator Melissa Bowlin presented the process during council’s meeting. Assuming both the county and Saluda sign the contract, Polk County will charge Saluda 1.5 percent of Saluda’s collections as its fee.

Polk County has been collecting the Town of Columbus’ taxes since 1999 and will collect Saluda’s taxes in the same manner as it does Columbus. The Town of Tryon will be the only town in the county that collects its own property taxes.

Bowlin told Saluda commissioners the advantages of having the county bill its taxes are it will save both the city and taxpayers on employee time, billing and mailing.

Software the city would need to bill its own taxes would be a one-time $9,000 for the software plus an additional $6,000 annual maintenance cost and $3,000 to train employees to use the system.

The county has the software already as well as the policies and procedures in place and the staff.

The county also begins taking tax payments on July 1 and Saluda does a month or two later, so Bowlin said Saluda would see those revenues begin to come in a month or two earlier. The county will begin taking Saluda’s payments in July with Bowlin saying Saluda taxpayers will receive a two percent discount on both city and county taxes if they pay in July and a one percent discount if they pay in August. There was some confusion during Saluda’s March 9 meeting whether or not the county’s two and one percent discount would apply to just the county portion of taxes or both Saluda and the county’s portion. Bowlin said after reviewing Columbus’ tax collections, both town/city taxes and county taxes benefit from the county’s July and August discounts.

Saluda’s total tax revenue this year billed was for $562,366, according to Bowlin so at a 100 percent collection rate that would mean a cost of $8,400 from Saluda to the county for the service. Bowlin said on average collections county-wide are between 92-93 percent and 96 percent for the Town of Columbus, so the cost would be a little lower based on a less than 100 percent tax collection rate.

Bowlin said the county bills approximately $13 million per year in county property taxes and by the end of July her office receives half of that total. Saluda will receive their tax collection totals per month, minus the county’s 1.5 percent fee.

Bowlin said her office gets additional heavy tax collections in August because of the one percent discount and the other heavy time of year for tax collections is in December when taxpayers are trying to avoid the penalty. Taxes are due by the first of the year.

Attorney Nager reminded commissioners on March 9 that another important aspect of the county collecting taxes for Saluda is the county would handle all foreclosures and pursuing unpaid taxes. He said that would take off from his time the city owes.

The Polk County Board of Commissioners is scheduled to decide whether or not to sign the contract with the City of Saluda during its April 20 meeting. The effective date of the contract will be July 1, 2015.