The only certainties in life are death and taxes. On Jan. 1 of this year, Ohio eliminated the certainty of death taxes.
Ohio’s state legislature eliminated the estate tax, which is a tax on a person’s property after their death. The repeal passed in 2011 and took effect at the onset of 2013.
“Should’ve been done a long time ago,” said Pete Couladis, chairman of the Athens County Republicans. “Somebody dying shouldn’t be a taxable event. There are other ways to get revenue without taxing something that’s already been taxed in someone’s lifetime.”
State Sen. Lou Gentile, D-Steubenville, who represents most of Athens County, said he supported creating a million-dollar threshold to help out middle class families dealing with the tax but added that removing the tax completely will cause problems for the district.
“Eliminating it is going to cost townships tons of money in my district,” Gentile said. “That’s going to start settling in after this year. Once that happens, some of the townships around here are going to have trouble doing what they do.”
Revenue raised from the estate tax stays at the local level. While the amount raised is completely dependent on who dies in a given year, the tax being eliminated will have negative effects for local government, Gentile said.
Athens typically averages $200,000 a year from the estate tax, which is put into a fund for capital improvements, Mayor Paul Wiehl said.
“We wouldn’t want to maintain somebody’s salary off that,” Wiehl said. “But we put it aside and say, ‘OK, here is a little side pool of money to fix something, buy a car, put a chimney on a building.’ ”
The tax cut has a direct connection to Ohio’s state budget, and further cuts are being made to compensate for revenue lost from cuts such as the estate tax.
“The budget bill that was passed has created a lot of problems for local governments and townships,” Gentile said. “Harmful effects are starting to show. If we don’t get relief for local governments and some of the critical services they provide, they are going to be closing the doors soon.”
Wiehl acknowledged the problem and said one effect might be removing Athens County Jobs and Family Services and having that aid come out of Columbus, cutting jobs locally.
“This day and age, I don’t really expect a lot of good things coming out of Columbus,” Wiehl said. “I’m not sure why it’s accepted that you don’t need resources to run civilization. To say we don’t need to spend more on infrastructure, whether it be trains, roads or schools — we’ve got a problem.”
With the balanced budget amendment in place, state government needs to figure out exactly where their priorities lie, Gentile said.
Yet if the money is not there, you have to cut at some place, Couladis said.
“You can either punish existing taxpayers by taxing them more, or you grow the economy,” Couladis said. “I think Gov. Kasich has looked at growing the economy as the way to do it.”
as299810@ohiou.edu
