Fairfax Sales Tax Rate Jumps to 9 Percent – Do You Care?

In the Nov. 6, 2012 election, Marin County voters overwhelmingly backed a countywide quarter-cent sales tax increase, the latest resounding show of support for Marin's parks, open space and farmlands that dominate the county's geography.

Five months later, that tax hike kicks in this week, sending sales tax rates up to 9 percent in Fairfax, Novato and San Rafael and to 8.5 percent in the rest of the county.

Measure A is expected to raise approximately $10 million a year and was placed on the ballot by the Marin County Board of Supervisors in August 2012 after a lengthy rollout.

Sixty-five percent ($6.5 million) of the revenue will be used to protect or restore natural resources and maintain county parks and open space preserves.

Twenty percent, or $2 million, goes toward preserving farmland and ranches from development and subdivision, and 15 percent ($1.5 million) would be directed to municipalities and special districts to manage their parks, open space preserves and recreation programs and reduce wildfire risk.

A small portion of the tax would go toward protecting properties along the Bay from development and to acquire strategic properties as a wildlife corridor, according to parks officials.

California's base sales tax rate is 7.5 percent. In 2004, Marin voters approved a half-cent sales tax increase to pay for transportation projects. Four years later, Marin voters approved a quarter-cent sales tax hike to pay for the Sonoma-Marin Area Rail Transit (SMART) train and pushing the countywide rate to 8.25 percent.

In 2011, Fairfax voters approved a controversial ballot measure to raise the local sales tax by a half-cent, increasing the local rate to 8.75 percent and raising more than $200,000 to go to the town's general fund.

Which brings us to April 2013. The sales tax rate in Fairfax is now 9 percent, and 8.5 percent in San Anselmo.

Do you care? Are your sales tax dollars being well spent? Is 9 percent too high? What sales tax rate would be too high?

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