The Guilford County Board of Commissioners will have a lot on its plate next year and that could mean that there might be some brand new taxes on what’s on your plate when you go out to eat.
Chairman of the Guilford County Board of Commissioners Skip Alston said this week that he wants the commissioners and other elected leaders in the county to have a serious discussion in 2024 as to whether Guilford County should implement a new tax on prepared food sold in the county.
Alston said other local governments in the state had implemented that type of tax and had been able to use the added revenue stream to enhance life in those cities and counties and undertake important projects.
“I want to make it clear that I am not advocating for the tax yet,” Alston said, “but I think it is something we need to take a serious look at.”
He added that he believes there’s support for the new tax among many elected leaders in Guilford County.
He also said the county commissioners didn’t wish to put more of a financial burden on property owners and the good thing about a prepared food tax – which would be an extra charge placed when dinning out at restaurants, getting takeout, or, say, buying food from a food truck or a vendor at a sports event – is that the tax would not just be paid by county residents. It would also be paid by non-residents who came into Guilford County for a special event, or were passing through, or came from a surrounding county simply to enjoy a meal out in Greensboro or High Point.
“This would not apply to groceries you buy at the store,” the chairman noted, adding that he realized people were already up set buy food cost increases due to inflation.
Last year, City of Greensboro leaders began having some initial behind the scenes talks with state legislators about the possible implementation of a prepared food tax for the city, but residents can now expect a discussion about a countywide prepared food tax in 2024.
It’s something that the state legislature could put on the ballot for voters to decide, but another option would be for the county to request that the state legislature grant the Guilford County Board of Commissioners the option of voting the tax into existence without putting it on a ballot. In any case implementing a prepared food tax requires the approval of the state legislature, Guilford County can’t do it on its own.
Former Guilford County Commissioner Justin Conrad, who runs a restaurant supply business, went on record in early 2023 as saying he believes this is an absolutely terrible idea.
Conrad said then that struggling families often have no choice but to eat out or get takeout.
He also said in January that it’s not right to make an end-run around the voters.
“If you want the tax, put it on the ballot,” Conrad said, adding that he believes city leaders don’t see that as an option because area residents have shown that they will vote down a sales tax increase every time it shows up on the ballot.
If I remember right Vaughn tried to slip this tax earlier and found out she had no authority to do so. Now Skip may want to give it a try. People please wake up. All they want is additional revenue to spend on their pet projects and make the legal taxpayers pay for it, again not taking into account the down side it will cause restaurants and other food industries to say nothing about the consumer. Man that 30% tax increase along with crap like this should make many people be so glad to get out of this town.
Pretty soon we will have a request to tax the air we breathe.
Oh, we already do. All the “Green” initiatives are exactly that. Anything that has to do with “global warming” and ESG scores has increased the cost of most products and services and is added to each item which is a “tax” that you pay on the air you breathe.
This tax is absurd.I see so many elder people eating their one meal a day at places like Oakcrest, Jake’s and Herbies.This tax will be an unfair burden.Another problem is people will just tip less if their food costs go up so then servers will seek other employment or minimum wage will need to go up.
Come on Skip..Guilford Co reamed out the Covid funding and throws $$ away like it’s gum wrappers.Stop hurting the lower and middle class for the sake of some tourist $$.
HYPOCRISY ….?
Just last week these same people were parading their concern for low income people who are finding it difficult to feed their families (thanks to Bidenomics!).
And low income families resort to fast food and other prepared food much more than other people.
What can we infer from this? We can clearly infer that Democrats are shameless hypocrites, publicly wringing their hands over “food insecurity” and painting themselves as saints who “care”, and proposing a new tax on food in the next breath.
The political Left pushes the interests of the state above all else. Government is their God. On every issue, and on every occasion, the Left will champion whatever position will enrich and empower government. They even imposed North Carolina’s Sales Tax on food, as “a temporary measure” in 1961. Robin Hayes and the GOP reduced it to 2% in the Nineties, and they need to proceed to a full repeal of this regressive and iniquitous tax. Meanwhile our local Dems are pushing for a brand new tax on what we eat.
So we can clearly infer that the Right is on the side of the people and the Left is on the side of the state.
The real hypocrisy is that republicans don’t support fair wages for workers but then complain about taxes being used to ensure that all Americans have a min amount of food to sustain life given that 70% of food aid is used by working Americans. Guess socialism is fine for conservatives as long as it is only the wealthy that benefit.
What rambling, irrelevant, digressing gibberish.
Hey chris, I just saw where Putin finally did something I agree with. He just outlawed lgbtq activism on Thursday. Go Putin
Chris what Co.s are not paying their workers a fair wage today. Also every time wages are increased so are the prices of all goods involved thus we all pay more or the other side is businesses close because people stop supporting them because of the higher prices. Result then is people lose their job and taxpayers end up supporting them
What’s your answer to this
Guess it wasn’t enough for Emperor Skippy to not reduce the property tax rate when property values increased to keep revenue neutral, as boards have done in the past. He wants more!!! Skippy never met a tax hike he did not like.
Let’s put it on the next voting day and let the taxpayers decide skip. I’m sure you won’t do it because you remember what happened when the same thing was put on the ballot about supporting your downtown money pit. But you have been able to do an end run around taxpayers and continue to steal taxpayer dollars for your non sustainable pet project
You’re right Rebel, but have you ever noticed that the only things that get put up for a vote are things that the government wants? And if it fails, they just keep putting it on the ballot until they get what they want. So we’ve been asked THREE TIMES to approve a hike in the local sales tax, but we’ve never been given the option to vote for a reduction sales tax, have we?
Here are options that I want to see voted on:
* Should periodic property revaluations also require the county to adjust the tax rate to a revenue neutral level?
* Should the sales tax on groceries be repealed?
* Should any proposed tax increase, or new tax, require a 2/3 supermajority vote to be approved?
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Don’t hold your breath though. They will NEVER allow us to vote on these questions.
All that new tax would do is place a heavier burden on residents who are already overtaxed in Greensboro and Guilford County and would drive them to eat out less or eat I’m another county. This would be a terrible burden on restaurants which would see less custom. Shame on our leaders who want this!
Yet another tax increase? On food? How can anyone be for that?
Now, we have enough trouble meeting our monthly expenses, not including an added expense of eating out. You wanna inhibit or destroy another segment of business just to feather the Party Nest?
Even folks of limited means have to take a meal out sometimes. When I was a child in the 40s, I remember seeing working men buying a pack of saltines and a tin of vienna sausage for a dime – that was all they had for lunch. Taxing poor people to eat a burger for lunch out punishes them, too.
On another note, we just took a trip to our favorite big-box retail/food store (the only one in town). Even there, the price of nearly everything ends in 99c. $16.99 for 2lb. coffee (last year was 10.99), butter $13.99, olives $11.99, etc. etc.
FYI, a pound of unroasted arabica coffee (shipped from Brazil in a 50 kilo bag) is $1.83/lb today. So how did $1.83/lb. become $8.50/lb? Buying food is like going hunting, except we are the ones being hunted.
Our govt in Washington is responsible for all of this. No matter what your politics, voting Socialist will get you even more of it, until they run out of other people’s money (soon).
South America is struggling with bean yields due to climate issues (drought with periods of extreme flooding). In addition, high cost of fuel in Brazil has dramatically increased cost of transportation and cost of running farming machinery. None of these are related to US policy.
Welcome the global economy.
Even another reason to locate you home or business in another County, like……..ROCKINGHAM.
We should be taxing lies,bull, and racism. That would bankrupt skippy.
Great move Skip? Restaurant and Fast Food has gotten so expensive the average citizen can’t afford to eat out very often anymore! Real smart, just tax it and put more restaurants out of business. All you and the Guilford County Board of Commissioners need is more tax money to waste!
Jim Donaldson
LMAO…”a serious discussion”. Bend em over boys, let’s stick em again! More new taxes for pet projects.
I already spend most of my “going out” budget on travel and eating on vacation, save 1 or 2 Greensboro spots. This is another reason to continue doing so.
Another money stealing idea from our local government. What a terrible idea indeed!
Put it on the ballot and see how in tune our local elected officials are with their constituents.
Does Skip also realize that the food for dining out and take out have also gone up? People will stop going out to eat and getting food to go which could put the food businesses owners out of business. That’s not only bad for individuals but in the long run that would be less taxes for the county. Leave it to the Democrats to destroy a city!