Johnston residents will vote Tuesday, August 6th on instituting a 1 cent local option sales and services tax throughout the city. Here are some facts regarding how the tax would work:
- Anyone, including Johnston residents, who shops in Des Moines, West Des Moines, Waukee, Windsor Heights, Altoona, Pleasant Hill, or Norwalk is already paying this tax.
- Money generated by the tax in these communities goes into a pot which is then divided up (according to an obscure formula) and given back to those communities.
- Because Johnston has so little retail, residents do a lot of shopping in the communities mentioned above. If the tax is not instituted in Johnston, none of the revenue generated by the tax elsewhere will come back to Johnston. In other words, if the vote fails, like it did last time, Johnston residents will pay the tax nearly everywhere they shop in the metro but won’t benefit from increased funding for city services like the police, the fire department, roads, and the library–sales tax paid around the metro only goes to the communities who have instituted the tax.
- With the tax, Johnston residents as a whole will pay about $1.7 million more in taxes inside Johnston (they will likely pay much more outside Johnston) but, because of the formula mentioned above, $3.25 million is expected to come back to the city.
If approved, half of the revenue generated will go toward lowering resident’s property taxes. The other half will be used for city projects like a new security camera system for the library. More information can be found via the link below.
https://johnstonlocaloption.com/