Legislation

Mandatory local option tax proposed

By on • ( 20 Comments )

by Guy Page

A Bennington Democrat is the sole sponsor of a bill that would require every municipality to enact a local option tax.

H.802 was sponsored by Rep. James Carroll, introduced into the House on January 16, and assigned to the House Committee on Government Operations and Military Affairs. 

This bill proposes to require every city, town, and incorporated village to adopt a one percent local option tax on any combination of sales, meals and rooms, or alcoholic beverages.

At present, state law gives municipalities the option to (with legislative approval) tax some or all of these items. Local option taxes purport to shift the municipal tax burden from residents to non-residents. They are popular in communities with regional shopping malls, such as Williston. Berlin, home to three malls, will vote on  an option tax at Town Meeting this year.

A municipality may vote to levy the following 1% local option taxes in addition to state business taxes. Local option tax does not apply to the sale or rental of motor vehicles which are subject to the motor vehicle purchase and use tax. 

The state allows the following:

  • Local Option Sales Tax: 6% sales tax + 1% = 7% total tax
  • Local Option Meals Tax: 9% meals tax + 1% = 10% total tax
  • Local Option Alcoholic Beverage Tax: 10% alcohol tax + 1% = 11% total tax
  • Local Option Rooms Tax: 9% rooms tax + 1% = 10% total tax

H802, however, would require towns to enact local option taxes – effectively taking the ‘option’ out of local option.

Voters in Bennington, which Carroll represents, rejected local option taxes several years ago.

Discover more from Vermont Daily Chronicle

Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.

Categories: Legislation

20 replies »

  1. Operation Tincup – your spare change will belong to the State…the Pharaohs of old are back under the Golden Thunder Dome. Perhaps if we encircle the State House once a day for the first six days, and then encircle the city of Montpelier seven times on the seventh day, blow a shofar, and shout “let us go!”, the sniveling, repugnant, thieving empire will crash down to the ground? I’d be willing to give it a try – could prove more effective than voting.

  3. the key board thumpers are still sleeping/// they will love the new tax/// hope it makes them feel good///

  4. Local option taxes. Anything to squeeze a little more blood from the dead horse.

  5. I don’t eat at restaurants. Garbage food full of sodium. I don’t shop in The VSR either. All purchases are in N.H. I just bought a new DeWalt grinder in W. Leb. yesterday. Did weekly shopping at P.C. Filled up car at Mobil next to P.C. Border between the Marxist VSR and the Live Free or Die N.H. is a mere 7 miles away. FOAD M/P/D legislature!

  6. I have a better idea than H.802. How about every city / town municipalities ( including legislation in Montpelier) get extremely serious about cutting expenses we currently have. There is no money tree behind the state house, and there is no money tree in my yard either. When your car starts nickel and dimeing you for maintenance, you get rid of the car and replace with something more reliable and economical. 1% tax is just a fancy way of nickel and dimeing Vermonter’s. I bet I can find 10% of fluff we are taxing Vermonter’s without trying to hard, of course I wouldn’t be popular. We don’t owe the homeless a living. Help maybe but with requirements to work if able. We don’t owe criminals a get out of jail free card. I pay for my insurance, it’s time for everyone to pull their own weight. It’s time local and state government stick to our budget. That is what they are elected to do, not spend money we don’t have. That is irresponsible!!! If you can’t control the budget, (without pickpocketing Vermonter’s) get out and let someone else take over.

  7. This Representative is one of those that thinks has no respect for his constituents and believes they are all stupid. Does he really believe that calling it a mandatory local option tax we won’t see that it is just an increase in all consumer taxes. Who votes these people in?

  8. vote down all town and school budgets in march meeting/// tell your local government you have had enough///

  9. These disingenuous putzes dont have the chutzpah to just add 1% to the sales tax, they want to convert an option into a mandate. People of Waterbury are correct to be concerned when it is proposed to convert the armory into a 3-month “temporary” shelter for those who claim to be homeless. Just as option turns into mandatory, temporary morphs into permanent. Who votes for these people?

    • “Who votes for these people”? The transplants that came from there where they hated it and came here with their Dem/Prog/Marxist agendas and ruined this once great State of Vermont and slowly turned into the V.S.R.

    • I am from Bennington but not from Carroll’s district. My rep is Corcoran who has ten times the brains of this putze, Carroll. On another issue involving S5 I wrote a letter to the editor to the Bennington Banner, that monument of “quality journalism” to inquire why Carroll voted yes on a bill to deny a cap on spending while Corcoran voted no. Bennington Banner would not publish it. Quality journalism? A laugh.
      By the way, Carroll also serves on the select board in Bennington.

  10. They don’t have to care about all the people shopping in NH because they make up the lost revenue by just raising the taxes. The people who suffer are the businesses that lose customers and sales because people will always go somewhere else where they can save a buck.

  11. The current leadership never saw a tax it didn’t love enabling them to part you and your earning. Unfortunately for all the monster which has been created has an insatiable appetite and zero accountability as to how it is spent

    Rest assured the spiral will spin faster in this circle game.

  12. LOL! Of course the state collects and keeps 30% of the local option taxes passed by the municipalities. This is what Caroll (and presumably others) are after. They get their cut and think they can shift the blame for a tax increase onto the municipalities. “We didn’t raise the sales tax! Towns did!” These people are truly awful.

  15. TIME FOR THE ‘LEGISLATURE’ TO ADJOURN FOR THE YEAR BEFORE THEY CAUSE ANY MORE CHAOS AND DISOMOMFORT TO US CITIZENS.

  16. James is our representative from Bennington and a selectman! Just to let you know he NEVER paid his meal tax to the state when he ran his food operation here in Bennington, almost unbelievable what he proposes !!