The School Infrastructure Local Option (SILO) is a 1% local option sales tax adopted on a county by county basis in

Iowa Iowa () is a state in the Midwestern region of the United States, bordered by the Mississippi River to the east and the Missouri River and Big Sioux River to the west. It is bordered by six states: Wisconsin to the northeast, Illinois to th ...

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territori ...

. Although the tax is collected by county, state mandate says the total amount collected is to be pooled and shared between the school districts. SILO was developed in 1998 by the

Iowa General Assembly The Iowa General Assembly is the legislative branch of the state government of Iowa. Like the federal United States Congress, the General Assembly is a bicameral body, composed of the upper house Iowa Senate and the lower Iowa House of ...

to give school districts a revenue options other than the

property tax A property tax or millage rate is an ad valorem tax on the value of a property.In the OECD classification scheme, tax on property includes "taxes on immovable property or net wealth, taxes on the change of ownership of property through inhe ...

. The tax can be enacted for up to 10 years at a time. As of late 2005, only

Linn Linn may refer to: People * Linn (surname) * Linn (given name) * Linn da Quebrada, stage name of Brazilian singer, actress, screenwriter and television personality Lina Pereira dos Santos (born 1990) Places Germany * Linn (Gangkofen), a part ...

and

Johnson Johnson is a surname of Anglo-Norman origin meaning "Son of John". It is the second most common in the United States and 154th most common in the world. As a common family name in Scotland, Johnson is occasionally a variation of ''Johnston'', a ...

counties in Iowa had not enacted a SILO tax. In the spring of 2006 the Iowa legislature encouraged the two remaining counties to join the other 97 counties which had enacted this tax by offering an incentive provided the tax was enacted by July 1, 2008, allowing the districts to keep 100% of the money generated for the first half of the time it is collected instead of pooling it statewide. A vote was scheduled in both counties for February 13, 2007 where it was approved, 58% to 42% in Linn County and 67% to 33% in Johnson County. The tax for both counties went into effect on July 1, 2007 for a period of 10 years, making it a statewide tax. Iowa currently has a 6% state sales tax rate in addition to the 1% SILO tax and any other Local Option Sales Taxes (LOST) which may be in effect in each county, often an additional 1%.

References

{{reflist Taxation in the United States Education in Iowa