There was an interesting debate last week over an $8,000 increase to the income limit for Chautauqua County senior citizens to qualify for a property tax break.

Legislator Dan Pavlock, R-Ellington, said the legislation proposed was not a “tax break” but more of a “tax shift,” because others will pay more since more seniors would be paying less. During committee meetings, Legislator Dalton Anthony, R-Frewsburg, noted that the more tax breaks are given to seniors, the more younger people have to pay. It was a notion that drew agreement from Legislator Fred Johnson, R-Westfield, who said, “Young homeowners trying to get into the market, you’re raising the cost to them.”

Pavlock, Anthony and Johnson are right. Every tax break given means someone else has to pay a little bit more.

And that’s why we have advocated for years that the county, rather than looking longingly at its surplus every year, can do a better job of decreasing taxes on all of us. And, before we hear about the county’s tax rate, which has indeed gone down over the past few years, we will say up front that we’re talking about the tax levy — which is the actual amount of money the county takes from taxpayers each year.

Tax rates are influenced by the value of taxable property in the county, and the county has seen tax base growth that has kept tax rates down. But tax rates don’t indicate how much more of your money the county takes each year. An increase in the senior citizen property tax exemption limit may not have been needed if the county tax levy hadn’t gone up by 16.7% over the past six years. On one hand, keeping taxes to a 2.8% increase a year, on average, is commendable. On the other hand, the county’s surplus indicates to us those tax levy increases could have been lower — meaning an even bigger tax rate decrease than you’ve been receiving from the county.

County Democrats may not have the right plan yet to decrease county taxes, but it is, in our opinion, quite possible for a tax shift that benefits every single taxpayer in Chautauqua County — a tax cut.