By Jason Evans

Staff Reporter

jevans@thepccourier.com

EASLEY — Easley officials are taking a look at the city’s hospitality tax and a discount currently offered by the city.

[cointent_lockedcontent]City administrator Stephen Steese spoke to council during their March 14 meeting about an issue with collections.

“The way that the hospitality ordinance is currently set up is 2 percent of your sales on prepared food is to be collected and turned over to the city,” Steese said. “That’s used for tourism. We use it for the J.B. ‘Red’ Owens Complex, the tournaments and everything to try to bring people into the city, to in turn bring more business to the restaurants that serve the prepared food.”

The hospitality tax is collected just like the sales tax and is to be dispersed like the sales tax, only coming to the city of Easley instead of the state, he said.

“Right now there is a discount in there,” Steese said.

The sales tax is due on the 20th of each month for most restaurants, Steese said.

“If you pay it by the due date, you get a 2 percent discount,” he said. “Which means that the taxes the citizens are paying that are supposed to go to the operations and tourism-related activities of the city are not actually coming to the city.

“Last year, that was about $33,000 that got kept by the businesses that collected the sales tax,” Steese continued. “As far as we can tell, we are the only city in the state that gives that discount. The state does not give a discount for paying sales tax early. That’s funds that could … be leveraged to the operation of our facilities to go to bring in more tourism activities and used for festivals, events, stuff like that.”

Councilman Jim Robinson asked what types of businesses were taking advantage of the discount currently.

“Your larger national chains, which are the ones that make up the vast majority of what we receive in hospitality (taxes)” Steese said. “Places like McDonald’s, Cook Out, Wendy’s, those kind of places. As long as they pay by the 20th of the month, they get that 2 percent discount and they’re pretty consistent about paying on time. That’s additional money that they wouldn’t get to keep otherwise.”

Businesses that don’t pay the sales tax on time face a 5 percent penalty per month, Steese said.

The ordinance does not increase the hospitality tax. Customers would not see an increase in prices at restaurants.

The ordinance amendment would simply remove the discount for paying sales taxes early. The change, if adopted, would take effect May 1.

Council unanimously voted on first reading to amend the hospitality tax ordinance. Steese said a public hearing would be held on the issue before second reading.

In other Easley city news, city offices will be closed Friday for the Good Friday holiday.

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