Utilities, taxes, and dues in West Ridge

1. Utility companies:

1.1 Electricity: Santee Cooper (residential rates)

• Monthly "Customer charge" (flat fee each month even if you use no electricity): $19.50/month.
• Energy charge: 12.0 cents per kilowatt-hour May - August, 10.0 cents per kWh the rest of the year; higher if you use way more than most people.
• No sales tax.
• Bill pay fee: $3 (last I saw) "convenience fee" for paying with a credit or debit card. No fee for check, automatic debit to your bank account, cash, etc.
• Customer rates will stay the same through 2024, but are likely to rise in 2025. Residential bills also now have a line showing kilowatt-hours "On Peak", suggesting that time-of-day pricing may happen in 2025.
• Installing visible solar panels requires ARB approval. One of the provisions of the South Carolina Energy Freedom Act that went into effect May 16, 2019 is "net metering", which greatly improves the economics of installing a solar system that may produce more power than you're using at a given moment, and applies to residential systems of up to 20 kW (and nonresidential systems up to 1 MW). ("Net metering" means the power company pays you the same amount for power you produce as they charge you for power you consume. Typically, your new electric meter will run both forward and backward. Previously, the rate Santee Cooper paid for excess power was so low that doing so was uneconomical.)

1.2 Water: Grand Strand Water and Sewer Authority

• Monthly "Customer charge" (flat fee each month even if you use no water): $23.40/month. (as of 12/2023).
• Water+sewer charge: $3.62 per 1,000 gallons for the first 8,000 gallons. Rates rise beyond that. 8,000 gallons/month should cover typical household usage. NOTE: The HOA provides irrigation for your lawn, which saves you money!
• No sales tax.
• Bill pay: GSWSA allows automatic bill pay to a credit card with no fee.

1.3 Trash collection

No extra cost. Weekly trash collection is part of your HOA dues.

1.4 Landline phone, Internet, Cable TV: Horry Telephone Cooperative (HTC)

West Ridge is an HTC-exclusive enclave for landline telephone, cable TV, and Internet service. HTC has fiber to the home, not copper wires. Internet service enters the house as a standard Ethernet connection (no cable modem in your house needed) and currently (12/2023) speeds start at 500Mb/second. HTC Internet service includes a wireless router.

The HTC box on the side of the house converts signals and offers battery backup for telephone service (since it's a fiber line, not copper) but not for Internet or TV services.

Some people have DirectTV, Dish, 5G wireless, or other over-the-air services. With any Internet service, you, of course, have the option of subscribing to other (non-HTC) TV streaming services.

Like other phone companies (and unlike most cable companies), HTC's Internet service DOES allow servers, and, for an additional fee, you can get a static IP address.

In return for that exclusivity, the HOA gets a check from HTC each year for a portion of the money paid to HTC by us. This has generally been thousands of dollars a year.

As a co-op, HTC also returns to each customer each year a portion of what they paid HTC during the previous 12 months. The amount varies.

Bill pay: HTC does not charge a fee for paying your bill with credit card, but there is currently no option for automatic bill pay to a credit card.

Please visit HTC's website for their services and prices.

2. HOA dues

Dues are $120/month. Dues are the same for all.

3. Taxes

3.1 Property taxes

• the assessed value of the property,
• an "assessment ratio" which is 4% for an owner-occupied residence but otherwise 6%,
• and the tax rate, which was 216.2 mils (0.2162) in 2023.

In addition to the tax itself, the tax bill has fees and credits. Expect a Stormwater Fee of around $50 - $100, depending mostly on lot size. Credits may include the School Tax Credit and the Homestead exemption (a senior discount).

The School Tax Credit (see Act 388 of 2006) is an exemption from the school operating millage on the total assessed value of your residential property. South Carolina law allows this exemption for taxpayers who own the home in which they reside and are claiming legal residence. This is an automatic exemption for homeowners who have been granted the 4% legal residence ratio.

If you rent out the property, you are also subject to personal property tax on the value of your contents in the house, and perhaps the hospitality tax on the rent.

The tax bill each year is based on the appraised value and the owner as of December 31 of the prior year (so 12/31/2022 for tax bills sent in September/October 2023).

Example: An owner-occupied home assessed at the end of 2022 at $200,000 would be taxed at $200,000 * 0.04 * 0.2162 = ~$1730. A School Tax Credit of ~$950 and, if you're eligible, a Homestead exemption of ~$200, would reduce the final bill for such homeowners to about $580. The Stormwater Fee would raise the bill to ~$650.

Reassessments of property values occur every few (5?) years country-wide. Unless the home has recently been sold, in which case the sale price is used, the assessed value is usually a bit under actual resale value so that people will be less likely to challenge the assessment.

3.2 Sales taxes

• Sales tax is generally 8%, with many exceptions. That's 6% for SC State sales tax + 1% for an Horry County Schools/Education tax + 1% for the Horry County RIDE III road projects tax. The SC State sales tax doesn't apply to certain essentials, such as food bought from a grocery store that is not intended to be eaten in the store (but if the store has a lunch counter and seats, then the food bought at the lunch counter is subject to sales tax plus the restaurant tax).
• Like most other states that have a sales tax, South Carolina has a matching "Use Tax". Purchases made out of state that are brought back into the state are subject to the same tax rate as the Sales tax you would have paid if you'd bought it locally (i.e., usually 8% if it's subject to sales tax), minus whatever sales tax you paid the other jurisdiction. So, if you buy something online that's normally subject to sales tax and have it shipped to you and no sales tax was collected, you owe 8% Use tax. If you buy something in NC, pay 5% sales tax, and bring it back home, you owe 8% - 5% = 3% Use tax. If you paid 8% or more sales tax, you owe no Use tax (and don't get a refund).
• Some towns, such as the City of Myrtle Beach, have a local option 1% sales tax.
• Restaurants have an additional 2.5% tax.

3.3 Income taxes

There are no local/municipal income taxes.

South Carolina has a graduated income tax that uses your Federal Taxable Income (FTI) (income after deductions), with adjustments.

• The highest tax bracket, 7%, began at $15,400 in 2022. Your estimated tax in that case is FTI * 7% - $523.
• Social security income, railroad retirement income, and disability retirement income due to permanent and total disability are not taxed. (Any such income in your FTI is deducted.)
• There's a $15,000 deduction if you're 65 or over (not inflation adjusted).
• There are the usual bunch of adjustments to income for things like state income tax refunds included in your FTI, income from partially tax-exempt investments, etc.
• South Carolina exempts 44% of long term capital gains from income.
• There's also a non-refundable tax credit if the total cost of insurance for your home (liability, catastophe, flood, etc.) is more than 5% of your Federal Adjusted Gross Income (before deductions).