So it turns out even if you don't live at the shore, you might be affected by coastal homeowners insurance:
RALEIGH — Plans to cope with a storm that causes havoc along the coast could leave insurers and homeowners across the state — even those from inland communities such as Greensboro — between a rock and a hard place.
The rock: North Carolina’s current system for insuring coastal homes is driving insurers out of state, potentially making insurance more expensive and harder to find.
The hard place: Plans to make sure coastal problems don’t get out of hand could end up costing property owners who live nowhere near the coast extra premiums in the event of a disaster.
Caught in between: Companies such as Greensboro-based Alliance Mutual Insurance Co., which has 20,000 customers in the state and could find itself under water either way.
“The smaller the company, the more likely it is they could be driven out of business,” said Bob White, president and CEO of Alliance Mutual. His company insures a fraction of 1 percent of all the claims that could be paid.
Click here for the whole thing. Read more about the Beach Plan on its own website here. And read more about the plan from AP writer Emery Dalesio by clicking here.
Meanwhile, the honorables are trying to write themselves a budget. At this point, it's mathematically impossible for them to finish one before the end of the fiscal year:
Plans drafted by the House, Senate and governor all make cuts to state programs in order to balance the budget. But all rely on raising more taxes as well.
Leaders of both the House and Senate finance committees, which write the state’s tax laws, say they have agreed that they need to make changes that would raise roughly $990 million in new taxes over the next year and $1.3 billion more the year after that.
But the two chambers disagree on how that should be done.
The House budget proposal would raise income taxes on the state’s wealthiest citizens, those making more than $200,000 a year.
“It’s a good way to have a fair and balanced package that includes both a tax on high-end income and a sales tax increase,” said Rep. Paul Luebke, a Durham Democrat and the House’s chief tax writer.
By contrast, the Senate plan would lower sales and income tax rates but apply them to more items.
Click here for the whole story.
And in case you missed it on Saturday, Amazon has raised the stakes in its game of chicken with the General Assembly:
“They’re trying to tick off all their associates and get them to call down to Raleigh,” Barrett said. “I think that is pretty tacky. That’s not the way to use people who are referring business to your business.”
Barrett says he only earns a small amount from the ad on his site, www.bitsofws.com. But others have built small business based in large part on the income they derive from referrals.
“My heart bleeds for them, but we’re not the ones putting them out of business,” said Sen. David Hoyle , a Dallas Democrat and lead tax writer in the Senate. “Amazon is doing this.”
Hoyle said that even if the state did nothing, the North Carolina Department of Revenue had plans to start collecting taxes on this kind of “click through” revenue from Amazon.
Click here for that story.
Elsewhere: