Fiscal Insight

Orange County Commissioners have voted to raise property taxes by 1/4-cent in order to “combat climate change.” Before delving into the details, let’s take a look at the…

You have to admire the audacity of Robert Bush and the Arts and Science Council (ASC) for their campaign to increase the sales tax in Mecklenburg County by a…

The North Carolina budget bill (House Bill 966) for fiscal years (FY) 2019-20 and 2020-21 is over a thousand pages of provisions and monetary line items describing…

Now that the House has officially rejected the Senate’s budget bill, the two chambers soon will begin conference negotiations to set a final budget that likely will be subject to a…

Tax reform left a number of people receiving smaller refunds (or writing larger checks) this April because many taxpayers inadvertently had too little withheld from their paychecks. On the other…

In 2011, Buncombe County commissioners and the president of the Asheville-Buncombe Technical Community College promised voters that, if passed, a quarter-cent tax increase on the ballot that year would pay…

A $700 million accounting change made the North Carolina House’s $23.9 General Fund budget difficult to compare with past budgets and with Gov. Roy Cooper’s spending proposal. The budget bill…

In December 2018, I wrote the following: “As a general rule, the public and politicians should never view economic impact studies as anything more than an attempt by special…

The North Carolina budget remains a work in progress even as the State House votes this week to approve its version and send it to their colleagues in the State…

A bill filed in the General Assembly would bring back North Carolina’s unaccountable film tax incentives. The incentives had sunset in 2014 and been replaced by a grant program, which…