To The Editor:
Waitsfield officials are bringing before voters a townwide Local Option Tax (LOT) article. This proposal was before the voters not long ago when it required a charter change to impose. That proposal failed by a large margin. Now a charter change is no longer required. The current format requires a direct public vote. Same tax; different voting structure.
The board recently attempted to ease our concern about this tax by articulating some of its components. All helpful information and maybe even convincing to some but deserving of more analysis.
The LOT covers rooms, meals, alcohol, and retail. We often hear that visitors will pay the bulk of these costs. (Often wonder what visitors think of that?). We, who live here, probably don’t often encounter the need to rent a room. But meals and alcohol? We eat out too, don’t we? We buy beer, wine and distilled beverages, don’t we? Of course, we do. All taxed.
Is someone arguing that residents don’t engage in retail purchases? Retail is no small category. We make retail purchases every time we leave the house. Look around? Ever buy a 2-by-4? Flowers? Boots? Or any of a massive number of consumer products? These are all part of the retail environment. All taxed.
Are we to take comfort from the list of things not taxed? Groceries, prescriptions, other meds, gas, home heating, electricity, municipal services…things that have their own, unique taxing structures, whether obvious or hidden. The real list of goods and services exempted from the LOT is enormously long, maybe with no discernible end. This argument is as unconvincing as it incomplete! Voters will easily see through it.
We have a debt problem in Waitsfield. We have a property taxation problem in Waitsfield (Granted, mostly school costs-driven) Defaulting to another tax, even a minimal and targeted one, makes life in this town more expensive. I urge voters to vote “No” on the LOT. I also urge the board to work harder and more imaginatively to lower, not increase, our overall tax burden. Defaulting to more public taxation to address fiscal shortages is no longer sustainable.
Sal Spinosa
Waitsfield
