If Greensboro Mayor Nancy Vaughan had her way, Greensboro would have a prepared food tax, usually called a restaurant tax.
Vaughan is so in favor of the new tax that she held an invitation-only meeting on Monday, July 17 at 10 a.m. at Windows on Elm in downtown Greensboro, where the invitees were restaurant and bar owners.
Vaughan said before the meeting that she expected to hear a lot of objections, and she did.
No restaurant owner spoke in favor of the proposed new 1 percent tax on prepared food and drink. They had a lot of comments on how the City of Greensboro could improve the environment for their industry – such as reducing crime and streamlining permitting and inspections – but adding a new tax was not on the list of anyone who spoke.
However, Vaughan has a much more difficult task than just convincing restaurant and bar owners a new tax is what Greensboro needs.
In North Carolina, neither the mayor and City Council nor restaurant owners get to make the decision on imposing a prepared food tax.
The authority to impose a restaurant tax lies with the North Carolina General Assembly in Raleigh.
As Vaughan noted at the Monday meeting, no bill has been introduced in the legislature, which is currently winding down the 2023 session, so any proposal would at least have to wait for the 2024 session of the legislature to be introduced.
The Greensboro City Council is made up of eight Democrats and one Republican. In both Houses of the General Assembly, the Republicans have a veto-proof majority. A vote of 60 percent is needed to override a veto.
It is also worth noting that when North Carolina was, for the second year in a row named by CNBC as the best state in the country for business, both state House Speaker Tim Moore (R-Cleveland) and President Pro Tem of the state Senate Sen. Phil Berger (R-Rockingham) noted that they attributed much of the economic success of the state to the steady reduction in taxes by the Republican legislature.
Vaughan doesn’t have to convince the restaurant and bar owners in Greensboro that taxing prepared food and drink an additional 1 percent is a good idea, but Vaughan and supporters of the prepared food and drink tax will have to convince the legislature that, while the state is benefitting from lower taxes, what will benefit Greensboro is more taxes.
In the past, the legislature has not outright approved prepared food taxes, but approved the taxes pending a referendum, which means the voters of Greensboro or perhaps of Guilford County would most likely be given the opportunity to vote a new tax up or down.
The voters of Guilford County have voted down an increase in sales tax when it has been placed on the ballot.
Recall Vaughan
Such a waste of time holding a meeting for a proposed tax without the authority to impose one! Do we not remember the 1/4 cent temporary tax which the voters were vehement it not be renewed? Armageddon was proposed! How could the state survive without that 1/4 cent? And now to propose yet another tax which has no jurisdiction in the town council? Oh, Nancy, don’t you have meaningful work to do instead of wishing?
Appears our Greensboro Mayor is out to lunch again? Why wasn’t she informed this was the case that the State was responsible before hosting a meeting for adding a prepared food and drink tax? And how good and informed are her cohorts City Manager Taiwo Jaiyeoba and City Attorney Chuck Watts? Mayor Vaughan’s most absurd reasoning for adding this tax was so we could keep up with the other large Citys in North Carolina! It’s time Greensboro had a Mayor with just a little creativity? Meanwhile, if these three City Leaders (?) at this meeting don’t comprehensively address the crime issue in Greensboro many restaurants here will be closing anyway!
Jim Donaldson
Great news!
I believe that the cost of prepared food is priced at a point where the public may not continue to frequent prepared food establishments if the price climbs much more.
It is unbelievable where the prices are now.
The city needs to better utilize the money it currently is receiving to fund the requirements of the city. When the city makes-gifts of taxpayer money to organizations that are not part of the responsibility of the city, it should be excess money the city does not need. If the money is excess, taxes should be reduced, not raises.
There are exceptions, but for the most part, it’s not just the price, but the quality of the food and the attitudes of the most of the servers, that are keeping more and more people away from restaurants. This is especially true at most of the chain restaurants and fast food joints in the city.
Amen to ceasing gifts to money pits that do not serve all residents. The Civil Rights Museum is one example .In my opinion,it is financially mismanaged in addition to underutilized. Why not join it with the History Museum who do an outstanding job of exhibits and teaching and financial responsibility.
We do need some common sense,grounded decision making by leaders of our city who also has some creativity in developing a city with high standards and healthy atmosphere. Soooo talking the story or writing to editor from comfortable recliner is easy. Everyone should ask themselves what steps are they taking or willing to take to ensure our leadership is right for us. That means ACTION,not kvetching.
Make no mistake about what our city council is thinking about. They know that there is a cliff they are about to come straight into in the next 24 months. That cliff is the huge drying up of the 3 trillion dollars that the federal government printed and passed along to states, counties and cities of this nation. This revenue stream is about to dry up and when it does municipalities have only one way to raise money and that’s to raise property taxes or try and create other new tax revenue. Im glad our state government is in charge of this snd not municipality governments. They have had so much money and have given every employee, citizen and business everything they have ask for with respect to money. Now here comes the cliff and all this money will be gone. They are going to have to raise every tax and create many more to replace all this cash. It’s going to really hurt as they can’t print money like the federal government did so hold on to your wallets my friend as it’s going to get really expensive to live in Greensboro and Guildford County.
On the off chance that the GA does Mayor Nancy a solid and actually lets it go to the voters … I think it’s safe to say that regardless of the explanation verbiage that appears at the polls, the title of the referendum will be something like “Save the Puppies and Kittens.”
Thank you for letting us know. Everyone start calling our legislators!
“. . . . .what will benefit Greensboro is more taxes.”
The city’s first responsibility is to fund and maintain the infrastructure of water/sewer, law enforcement, and maintain the arterials with the taxes they generate. Yet Nancy is ready to give out $200,000 “again” to the civil rights museum, while at the same time can’t bring herself to pave or repair our streets? There’s roads all over GBO with potholes, water/sewer manhole covers not level with the streets, grass/weeds growing up in the cracks in the pavement, deep ruts in the pavements (see Guilford College road at West Friendly as an example), etc. Where is the money for that? Oh I forgot. . . .it’s being given to the “profiteers” doing business as “non-profits”. Yet they rank police and fire at the low part of the totem pole and think social workers might be a better use of personnel in crime ridden neighborhoods.
They also need to stop to using the term “gun violence.” There’s no such thing since it’s really humans using violence with guns, most of which are stolen by thugs and young people without parental supervision. Yet Nancy wants to give out more money to these so-called “non-profits” to fix things in the community, but that’s a rat hole with no end. These non-profits will follow the lead of Yvonne and her followers and make themselves, and their families and cousins, rich with their new-found feeding at the trough.
Agree totally with your comment. The county also gives to these nonprofits. The Woolworth “museum” was given $200,000 by the county taxpayers, without their permission. Funding nonprofits by the city and county governments must end. Funding is riddled with bias. The tax-free gift to the Yvonne Johnson nonprofit and the tax-free gift to the Woolworth “museum” are two examples of biased funding. Johnson serves on the Greensboro City Council and Skip Alston is chairman of Guilford County Commissioners. When taxpayer money is given to nonprofits, the implication is that the chosen nonprofits are worthy recipients of the grants, yet there is no verifiable audits or monitoring to determine worthiness. When tax money goes to maintaining streets, everyone benefits. When tax money funds the police, law-abiding citizens benefit by keeping the lawless at bay. All governments should be prohibited from funding nonprofits in any way, including recognizing nonprofits as tax exempt.
‘Gun violence’ is a lot easier to say than ‘humans using violence with guns’. Just sayin.
But, ‘humans doing violence with guns’ is more accurate. Convenience in saving a few syllables is not the answer.
Violence is violence. People kill other people. The method by which they choose to do so is as varied as is each individual person. Taking away constitutional, God-given rights of law abiding citizens is not going to solve anything, and will only make the problem worse, not to mention it will also pave the way for an already somewhat tyrannical government to gain a stronger foothold.
Cancellation of 2nd amendment rights; and/or the digitized currency will relegate our Republic to Big Brother and socialism.
You missed the whole point Chris. It’s not guns, but people using them which is never brought up in any conversation. The liberals think if there were no guns, everyone would be happy. That’s wishful thinking. Also, do you have any ideas on why law enforcement and the city council are not focused on the parents (parent) of the young people doing the crimes? All you hear is crickets from the politicians. And why isn’t the news media digging into the lives of the parents of these hoodlums?
Recall her NOW
If Nancy is so concerned about comparing Greensboro to these other cities why not start by lowering the tax rate to match theirs we are almost double all the cities she uses to compare us to. This new tax is an insult to all taxpayers especially after the recent increase in our water and sewer increase. the third year in a row.
Houses for sale in PG