by James Bell

I received an anonymous E-mail from “John” concerning the www.DouglasTaxes.com “Tax Savings Calculator”. John’s concern was that the calculations were too aggressive. The numbers were too high.

Here is what he said;

I think your tax savings calculator is a little aggressive. At your current assumption the 1% sales tax would = $40 million/year or $4 billion in taxable sales in Douglas County annually. The numbers I have show $899,440,748 in retail sales. That would = $8.9 million/year in tax savings. Great idea though, I just don't want you to loose credibility if someone starts thinking about those numbers. John”

Thanks John for your interest and input. Here is my response.

First of all, I hope people will think about these numbers! After all it’s money in or out of your pockets.

In order to calculate the savings we used the numbers quoted and published by Douglas County officials. We were told if the 1 cent sales tax failed the county would lose (or taxpayers would save) between $15-$18 million between July 1^st and December 31 depending on many factors, including a unpredictable 6 weeks holiday retail sales which some claim makes up about 40 % of retail sales for the year.

It is also reported that Christmas creates a boom and bust cycle, only on a yearly basis. Heightened Christmas spending can causes retail stores to make 50 percent of their profits in the last three months of the year. This produces a sales drought in January and February, and weakens the rest of the year as well, according to one published report.

So, based on these numbers we set the calculator. The amount shown on www.DouglasTaxes.com web site is only an estimate used to dramatize the tax savings. Regardless of whether the number is $15 million or $18 million, this is cash in our pockets which we can put back into our local economy and help to generate even more tax revenue.

Let’s look at some other numbers. The 2007 Special Purpose Local Option Sales Tax (SPLOST), a 1 cent sales tax which was rejected by voters, was in the amount of $150 million over 6 years. That equals $25 million a year for 6 years. We were told by Douglas County officials that this was based on a “modest” 2% growth and the real numbers may exceed $205 million over 6 years or $34 million pre year. So as you can see, it is not clear who is over-estimating the numbers.

I have concluded that YES the current calculations may be a bit high for the 6 month period, but January / February 2008 sales will be down and there is no real way for this simple calculator to understand these changes.

Therefore, in order to manage the calculator we will reset the amount to $18 million as of December 31 2007. This should bring the numbers closer to a realistic amount. From there, we will base the numbers on the “modest” figure of $25 million per year.

It was never our intention to exaggerate these numbers or to mislead the public. I hope this will help to explain the calculation issue.

If you have any information about the real numbers, please share them with us at: This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it We need to hear from you!