To the editor:
For 27 years I have owned and paid taxes on a 32-foot sailboat berthed in Blounts Creek. Every year the valuation declined, so you can imagine my surprise when the value jumped $2,200 last year and another $1,710 this year. I mean, the windows leak more, the engine is older and every single boat owner and yacht broker I’ve talked to has noted deep drops in boat prices during the current recession. No insurance company ever said any car I owned was worth more than the year before. So, while not minding paying taxes, I thought: This has to be legalized stealing by the Beaufort County tax office.
Then the light bulb came on: The solution to ending the Great Recession lies smack dab with the Beaufort County Tax office. All people elsewhere have to do is transfer their belongings — homes. cars, equipment, etc. — to Beaufort County where they miraculously will zoom up in value. Folks’ wealth would jump, there would be no more whining about taxes, people would be awash in cash. Indeed, the end to national and possibly planetary economic woes would start right there at the Beaufort County tax office!
But you’d better act soon if you want to buy my boat. The price is going up.
DUDLEY PRICE
Raleigh, NC