Jump to full article: TriCities.com (Bristol (TN) Herald Courier/WJHL-TV), 2010-01-10
Author: Debra McCown * Reporter / Bristol Herald Courier
Intro: ABINGDON, Va. - Five years after the tobacco subsidy program buyout, there's another quiet acknowledgement that tobacco is no longer king.
In Washington County, Va., long the state's top burley tobacco-producing county, the change takes effect this year: Property taxes are due long before the crop comes in.
County officials are preparing to implement twice-a-year property tax collection, with half due in May and the other half in November. The board of supervisors voted last year to make a change in 2010 from the traditional late-December deadline. . . .
But more than a move of convenience, the change is a reflection of how much the local economy has changed in the five years since the federal government ended its Depression-era tobacco quota and price support system.
Parker, who has held the office since the mid-1980s, remembers the long lines that would form downtown in late fall when the farmers sold their tobacco. First they'd pay off their fertilizer loan, he said, and then they'd pay their taxes.
"We used to take their tobacco checks and give them their change," Parker said. "They brought their tobacco checks here."
The Dec. 20 tax deadline was set years ago to maximize the time farmers had to sell their crop, Parker said, but also to collect taxes from people before they spent their money on Christmas.
"Our economy has shifted now from tobacco, where all your income came in December. We're geared much more now to a monthly income," Reynolds said.
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