Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: TUESDAY, March 6, 1990                   TAG: 9003061824
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: A9   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: DAVID M. POOLE STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: RICHMOND                                 LENGTH: Medium

SOLID-WASTE TAX MEASURE ADVANCES FOR SERVICES

The House Finance Committee also recommended that the tax not take effect until after the 1991 General Assembly has had an opportunity to decide just how "fair" the fee would be to many companies, both service or retail.

If approved, the tax would raise about $10 million a year for local recycling and solid-waste projects.

Several members of the House Finance Committee zeroed in Monday on the proposed tax's most obvious inequity: Businesses would be taxed on gross receipts or gross profits, not on the volume of trash they generate.

Del. Andy Guest, R-Front Royal, said a quarry might sell hundreds of thousands of dollars in bulk gravel, but generate little or no trash.

"If they have no solid waste to dispose of, why would they be liable to the tax?" Guest asked.

Del. Warren Stambaugh, chairman of a subcommittee that revised the Senate-approved tax, acknowledged that the tax had built-in inequities.

"Let's be clear about this; this is not the best way in the world to be going about our solid-waste problems."

The ideal way, he said, would be to require every household and business to separate recyclable materials from their trash, Stambaugh said.

Because that would be impractical in rural communities, the proposed solid-waste tax is the "single most creative" way in dealing with solid waste, he said.

As approved by the Senate, the tax would apply only to manufacturers, wholesalers and retailers. Stambaugh said it was only fair that the state's growing service sector also pay the tax.

"I don't know any business in this state that doesn't have trash to throw out," he said.

Companies would be taxed at the rate of 0.01 percent of gross receipts for retailers or gross income for service companies. The minimum tax would range from $10 to $10,000. Companies with less than $100,000 in gross receipts or profits would be exempt.

Stambaugh called the $10 million annual revenue projection "a drop in the bucket" compared with the state's mounting solid-waste problems.

Rather than hold the bill over for a year to resolve some of the problems, the House Finance Committee moved forward at the request of the bill's sponsor, Sen. William Fears, D-Accomack.

The committee voted 16-4 to send the tax to the full House. If approved, the bill will return to the Senate for consideration of the House amendments.

The House Finance Committee also approved a bill allowing any county to enact a local meals tax without holding a referendum.

Under current law, cities can enact a meals tax by the vote of the local governing bodies, but counties must get approval by the voters for a meals levy.

The proposal now goes to the full House. If approved, it will be considered by the Senate.

Keywords:
GENERAL ASSEMBLY