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Meal tax leaves sour taste for diners
Minutes after sinking his teeth into a cheeseburger at Buddy’s Union Villa in Easton, Michael Freese found it hard to digest that he had just paid a meal tax on his lunch.
The town implemented the meal tax last year, but the extra tax is news to Freese, a photographer.
“I didn’t know that,” Freese, 67, said last week as he glanced at his receipt, which showed he paid 40 cents state and local tax on his $5.75 cheeseburger. He paid roughly 4 cents more in taxes from the meal tax.
“I thought New York and Seattle and California had that,” he said. “I hate taxes.”
Two years after towns and cities first won the option to tax 75 cents out of every $100 spent at local restaurants, nearly 42 percent of the state’s communities are biting.
Stoughton, Brockton, Raynham, Easton, Middleboro and Bridgewater are among the local communities that have already approved a meal-tax hike.
The measure allows communities to enact a 0.75 percent local tax on restaurant and take-out meals on top of the 6.25 percent state tax.
The local tax has funneled thousands of dollars into some area communities – helping to stave off layoffs and to sustain existing services, officials said.
“It’s probably saved us from having to lay off anybody in the end of 2009 or 2010,” said Raynham Town Administrator Randall A. Buckner.
Raynham received an estimated $316,000 in fiscal year 2011, which ended Thursday. The town adopted a meal tax in 2009.
Brockton, which adopted a meals tax last year, has received $239,000 to date from the meal tax, said Brockton Chief Financial Officer John Condon.
The tax “enabled the city to provide school buses to children who would otherwise have been walking,” Condon said, adding that revenue from the meal tax is deposited in the city’s general fund.
Condon said the additional money will help maintain city services including library, highway and Council on Aging expenditures.
The meal tax has become an important additional source of revenue for Easton “during these difficult financial times,” said the town’s accountant, Wendy Nightingale.
Easton expects to receive a total of $243,920 in fiscal year 2011, she said.
“Without these funds, vital services such as public safety, education and public works would have to be reduced even further than they already have been,” Nightingale said.
But not all communities have adopted a meal tax.
Neighboring Holbrook, Rockland, Weymouth and Whitman don’t levy the additional tax. Abington voters rejected a meal tax at town meeting in April.
“It hurts in this economy to charge anymore to anyone,” said John Martin, owner of Mia Regazza on Route 18 in Abington.
Area residents had mixed views on the meal tax.
Hilary Castricone of West Bridgewater and her friend, Victoria Braley of Brockton, both said the added tax doesn’t stop them from dining out.
“It’s a very small percentage,” said Castricone, 24, a pharmacist, after dining at Panera Bread in Brockton on Tuesday. “It’s just another way for the state to make more money.”
But for Vicky MacInnis, a retired nurse from Taunton, the meal tax is an added expense she’d rather not pay.
“It’s money I don’t need to spend,” MacInnis, 73, said after having lunch in Brockton.
Source: enterprisenews.com
The town implemented the meal tax last year, but the extra tax is news to Freese, a photographer.
“I didn’t know that,” Freese, 67, said last week as he glanced at his receipt, which showed he paid 40 cents state and local tax on his $5.75 cheeseburger. He paid roughly 4 cents more in taxes from the meal tax.
“I thought New York and Seattle and California had that,” he said. “I hate taxes.”
Two years after towns and cities first won the option to tax 75 cents out of every $100 spent at local restaurants, nearly 42 percent of the state’s communities are biting.
Stoughton, Brockton, Raynham, Easton, Middleboro and Bridgewater are among the local communities that have already approved a meal-tax hike.
The measure allows communities to enact a 0.75 percent local tax on restaurant and take-out meals on top of the 6.25 percent state tax.
The local tax has funneled thousands of dollars into some area communities – helping to stave off layoffs and to sustain existing services, officials said.
“It’s probably saved us from having to lay off anybody in the end of 2009 or 2010,” said Raynham Town Administrator Randall A. Buckner.
Raynham received an estimated $316,000 in fiscal year 2011, which ended Thursday. The town adopted a meal tax in 2009.
Brockton, which adopted a meals tax last year, has received $239,000 to date from the meal tax, said Brockton Chief Financial Officer John Condon.
The tax “enabled the city to provide school buses to children who would otherwise have been walking,” Condon said, adding that revenue from the meal tax is deposited in the city’s general fund.
Condon said the additional money will help maintain city services including library, highway and Council on Aging expenditures.
The meal tax has become an important additional source of revenue for Easton “during these difficult financial times,” said the town’s accountant, Wendy Nightingale.
Easton expects to receive a total of $243,920 in fiscal year 2011, she said.
“Without these funds, vital services such as public safety, education and public works would have to be reduced even further than they already have been,” Nightingale said.
But not all communities have adopted a meal tax.
Neighboring Holbrook, Rockland, Weymouth and Whitman don’t levy the additional tax. Abington voters rejected a meal tax at town meeting in April.
“It hurts in this economy to charge anymore to anyone,” said John Martin, owner of Mia Regazza on Route 18 in Abington.
Area residents had mixed views on the meal tax.
Hilary Castricone of West Bridgewater and her friend, Victoria Braley of Brockton, both said the added tax doesn’t stop them from dining out.
“It’s a very small percentage,” said Castricone, 24, a pharmacist, after dining at Panera Bread in Brockton on Tuesday. “It’s just another way for the state to make more money.”
But for Vicky MacInnis, a retired nurse from Taunton, the meal tax is an added expense she’d rather not pay.
“It’s money I don’t need to spend,” MacInnis, 73, said after having lunch in Brockton.
Source: enterprisenews.com