Meals Tax Article in Today's Herald-Sun

Today's Herald-Sun has an article by Ray Gronberg on the prepared meals tax.  The article is about a city and county government panel meeting held to decide how they want to spend the possible extra income, and on what sound like political accommodations being made to make the bill more, er, palatable to some voters.  [Registration required, and the H-S doesn't post articles permanently; go look now if you can't get a copy of today's paper.]

The comments seem to be somewhat vociferous. 

Edit - Also see: The Short of It.

Comments

[Kevin Davis]

Joe: Something to consider.

The City Council will be considering giving a $7,500 grant to the owners of the Revolution restaurant opening downtown under the merchandise-based retail improvement program for targeted community areas. That's the equivalent to the tax that would be earned on $750,000 in restaurant sales if this tax went through.

Toast also received City funds through (IIRC) a small business loan/grant program.

If property tax dollars can go to support restaurants, what is so wrong with using a tiny tax on restaurant sales to cover events that bring more people downtown?

You know, nobody seems to care when property taxes go up a ton. People who live in wealthier neighborhoods and pay disproportionately more in those increases seem fine with it. But Lord help you if you propose a tiny 1% sales tax on prepared meals. Perish the thought!

[Joe Eater]

Kevin - Thanks for stopping by. And BTW, thanks for the longstanding link.

It's not a property tax at issue here. It's a food tax. But if the cost of, say, building materials for a house went up the way food costs have gone up and will continue to go up, then I might be against a property tax increase too.

It's a little more complicated than that, as a lot more goes into the price of a piece of property than the cost of materials for any new construction. (Also, property values tend to rise in rising economies, where as the food market is comparatively inelastic.) Actually, the tax structure is already so complicated that attorney/Senators who help make tax law claim not to understand it (q.v. Charles Rangel).

Also, there's already a food tax, as there's a sales tax on restaurant meals just like most other things. I also don't know if restaurants get to avoid sales tax on their purchases for making into meals. But it's not like the sale of prepared meals doesn't already generate tax revenue.

I'm way OT here for a food blog. But if you want, feel free to put up a similar comment on the other post I'm linked to from this one, as that's where most of the comments are. I'm not averse to others discussing the issue however they want.

BTW, if a majority of restaurant owners were in favor of this tax, especially the owners of existing businesses, then I might be more kindly inclined. But I'm pretty sure any startup is going to want to attract funds from wherever it can. Once they're in business, they're probably going to want to pay out as little as possible. :)