With the start of the legislative session less than two weeks away, a top Republican lawmaker already has announced plans to introduce a bill that would scrap a real-estate tax that’s proved unpopular with county voters.

Since the General Assembly first made the local-option 0.4 percent land-transfer tax available in 2007, it has appeared on the ballot 23 times in 21 counties. In each instance, voters have shot the tax hikes down, often by wide margins.

Another local-option tax made available by the legislature — a quarter-cent sales tax — has proven more popular, but not by much. Of the 76 attempts to pass the tax, only 17 have been successful.

Incoming House Majority Leader Paul “Skip” Stam, R-Wake, said he’s drafting legislation to eliminate the land-transfer tax altogether. There are “several rationales” for repealing it, he said.

“One is that the way they put it in to start with was sneaky,” he said. “Secondly, it’s failed [around] 24 times. Third, it’s a very poor structure of a tax. Fourth, the people who oppose it should not have to defeat it every time. It’s an undo burden on the citizens to have to stop it every time.”

Todd McGee, communications director for the N.C. Association of County Commissioners, said his organization would continue to support making the tax available for local referendums, despite its track record.

“Our members like having, basically, some choices they can try to put in place if they decide to in the future,” McGee said. “The fact that it hasn’t been successful has probably swayed some counties from trying it, but that doesn’t mean that at some point in the future it might not become something that more people start viewing as a viable option.”

In 2008, former state Sen. David Hoyle, D-Gaston, introduced a bill eliminating the real-estate tax. It passed the Senate with bipartisan support, but never came up in the House. Republicans introduced similar bills in the House and Senate in 2009. Both died in committee.

Stam said the repeal legislation would be introduced early in the upcoming session. “We’ll probably have someone on our finance team actually introduce it,” he said.

Asked why the sales tax is more palatable to voters than the land-transfer tax, McGee said, “I don’t want to say [the sales tax] has been an easier sell, but people understand what the sales tax is and how it impacts them a lot better than they do the land-transfer tax, because they’re used to paying a sales tax. They’re not used to paying a land-transfer tax. So they’re not really sure how that’s going to impact them.”

David N. Bass is an associate editor of Carolina Journal.