Though the Guilford County voters have, time after time, voted down a quarter-cent sales tax increase, the Guilford County Board of Commissioners has refused to take no for an answer and they plan to put the measure on the ballot again when countywide elections resume in early 2026.

And the sales pitch for the sales tax hike has already begun.

Chairman of the Guilford County Board of Commissioners Skip Alston told the Rhino Times this week that there is one large contingent in the county that should definitely support a sales tax increase – but that they clearly don’t understand the situation yet.  He said one thing the county needs to do before the next vote on a sales tax hike is educate homeowners and other property owners why it’s advantageous to them to approve an increase.

 It would mean an additional one quarter of a cent increase per dollar for most items sold in the county.

“Homeowners should get behind a sales tax increase if anyone should,” Alston said in an interview with the Rhino Times.

Alston said Guilford County is facing big economic challenges in the future that have to be paid for and, the sales tax increase would be a way to raise roughly $35 million extra a year to do things like provide vital services and help pay back the school bond debt.

He pointed out that everyone pays the sales tax – not just property owners in Guilford County.  Those who don’t own property, he said, would have an increased share of the coming burden, as would people who do not live in the county but who work here or who are just passing through.

“If there is no sales tax increase, then the burden of increasing county expenses will fall on the shoulders of the property owners,” Alston stated.

Of course, one fear of those considering approval of a sales tax hike is that the current spend-happy Board of Commissioners would keep the burden on property owners the same and just see the new $35 million each year as extra money that they can use for new projects and programs.

Nearly half of North Carolina’s 100 counties have voted for and approved a sales tax increase; however, Guilford County has proven very recalcitrant in that regard over the years.

In November of last year, county voters soundly shot down the increase once again.

In fact, only 30 of the county’s 165 precincts favored the measure in that election.

The commissioners were hoping that the 7th time would be a charm in November of 2024 and now they’re hoping that the 8th time – in 2026 – will be the charm.

So far, 46 of North Carolina’s 100 counties have adopted the measure.

Some backers of the referendum say it hasn’t been marketed very well in Guilford County in the past and it is certainly true that in 2024 there didn’t seem to be a grand, loud, all-out unified sales pitch for the sales tax hike.

That may change next year when county officials take another run at it.

Here’s a brief history of how the sales tax referendum has fared in Guilford County.

 In 2007, the NC General Assembly voted to allow counties to increase their sales tax by a quarter of a cent – as long as county voters approved. And the very first time Guilford County government could do so, it put the tax hike on the ballot.  That was the 2008 Primary election.

Voters shot it down.

Since it failed, the commissioners put it back on the ballot six months later – on the November ballot that year – only for it to fail again.

The Board of Commissioners then put the sales tax hike on the ballot in the General Elections in 2010 and 2014, and once again in 2020.

Since none of those efforts were successful, the board put it on the 2022 Primary Election ballot – where fewer voters turn out than in general elections – and it still lost.

Here’s how, by the numbers, the sales tax hike referendum has fared in past years.

In the 2008 General Election, it failed massively with 65,329 voting for it and 148,798 voting against. That is, it lost 30 percent to 70 percent.

Fifteen years ago, the advocates almost managed to get it passed: It came close in the 2010 General Election, when 66,198 people voted for it, while 70,022 voted no. That vote came down to 49 percent voting yes and 51 percent voting against.

The measure didn’t fare nearly as well four years later, in the 2014 General Election when 68,735 voted for it and 91,962 voted against. That year it lost 43 percent to 57 percent.

In the 2020 General Election, 89,440 voted for it, while 181,033 voted against. That works out to 33 percent yes votes to 67 percent no votes.

In the 2022 Primary Election, 33,720 people voted for it, while 41,457 voted against it.  That 45 percent to 55 percent vote didn’t cut it either.

And, again, in November of 2024, the referendum went down with 60 percent of the county’s voters voting no.

The commissioners may very well get their way in 2026, but it will take a lot of work to get there and Alston believes convincing property owners will be a large part of that battle.

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