Washington County, Va., tax collection change reflects tobacco's decline

ABINGDON, Va. – Five years after the tobacco subsidy program buyout, there’s another quiet acknowledgement that tobacco is no longer king.

In Washington County, Va., long the state’s top burley tobacco-producing county, the change takes effect this year: Property taxes are due long before the crop comes in.

County officials are preparing to implement twice-a-year property tax collection, with half due in May and the other half in November. The board of supervisors voted last year to make a change in 2010 from the traditional late-December deadline.

So half of this year’s real estate taxes will be due May 20 and the other half Nov. 20, with all personal property taxes due Nov. 20.

Treasurer Fred Parker said semi-annual tax collection will add a cost of about $30,000, but it will mean the county won’t be so strapped for cash in the summer and fall.

Kenneth Reynolds, chairman of the Washington County Board of Supervisors, said the change comes at a good time. The windfall in the first year, when May revenue will be collected just five months after 2009 taxes came in, could help to temporarily offset the financial blow of expected state budget cuts.

But more than a move of convenience, the change is a reflection of how much the local economy has changed in the five years since the federal government ended its Depression-era tobacco quota and price support system.

Parker, who has held the office since the mid-1980s, remembers the long lines that would form downtown in late fall when the farmers sold their tobacco. First they’d pay off their fertilizer loan, he said, and then they’d pay their taxes.

“We used to take their tobacco checks and give them their change,” Parker said. “They brought their tobacco checks here.”

The Dec. 20 tax deadline was set years ago to maximize the time farmers had to sell their crop, Parker said, but also to collect taxes from people before they spent their money on Christmas.

“Our economy has shifted now from tobacco, where all your income came in December. We’re geared much more now to a monthly income,” Reynolds said.

“A number of our real estate owners do pay their taxes monthly,” he said, “and we do see more and more where the taxes are paid monthly. So here again we felt like going to a twice-a-year payment would not have a major impact on many people.”

Parker said he’s among nearly 500 county taxpayers who already pre-pay on a monthly basis – and he’s heard fewer than 10 complaints about the change to semi-annual tax collection.

He said Washington County is in “the middle of the bandwagon” among localities in Virginia, many of which have already shifted their tax collection to twice a year to improve cash flow.

But the change also is one of many small signs that the legacy of tobacco, the state’s top cash crop for centuries, is fading – a change that, in Washington County, has come piece by piece, with such little things as removing “Burley Festival” from the name of the county fair two years ago.

It’s also the subtle things – such as the realization that, in a world where tobacco doesn’t rule, a tax bill due five days before Christmas no longer makes sense.

Of course, Parker said, there’s controversy no matter the timing.

“There’s never a good month to pay taxes,” he said, acknowledging the inevitable gripes that come with change. “I guess instead of being the Grinch that stole Christmas, I’m now going to be the guy who stole the Thanksgiving turkey.”

dmccown@bristolnews.com | (276) 791-0701

New tax deadlines

Washington County, Va., has adopted a twice-a-year tax collection plan starting in 2010. Under the new plan, taxes are due:

* May 20 - 50 percent of real estate taxes

* Dec. 20 - The balance of real estate taxes, and all personal property taxes.