ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Tuesday, November 26, 1996 TAG: 9611260118
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C4 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: CHARLOTTESVILLE
SOURCE: ASSOCIATED PRESS
Sister Dora doesn't need psychic powers to see one thing in her future: a $500 annual tax levied by Albemarle County.
It could be worse. The state allows localities to tax fortune tellers as much as $1,000 a year, which is 20 times more than other small businesses pay.
``It's a high license fee,'' said Steve Nicholas, husband and business manager of Dora Day, the only licensed fortune teller in Albemarle County. ``There are a lot of fortune tellers in this state. Everyone's complaining about this license.''
At $20 a pop, Sister Dora must read 25 palms just to pay the county tax. The business, professional and occupational license tax on other businesses in Albemarle earning between $5,000 and $100,000 is a mere $50.
Another beef of home-based oracles is that they must compete with nationwide telephone psychics who capitalize on convenience and don't pay local taxes.
``Those psychic lines, they're killing us,'' Nicholas said.
Sister Dora said people spend hundreds of dollars on calls to those psychics, often at rates of $4 or $5 per minute.
Another central Virginia fortune teller who spoke to the Daily Progress on condition of anonymity said telephone psychics also are capitalizing on the desire for anonymity.
``It's easy for someone to just pick up the phone in the middle of the night and no one knows they're doing it,'' the fortune teller said.
Albemarle County supervisors in recent weeks considered doubling the fortune-teller tax to $1,000. They decided after a brief discussion that the hardship it would cause Sister Dora wasn't worth an extra $500 to the county's $100 million-plus budget.
``If there were thousands of them out there and there was a lot of revenue involved, things may have been different,'' said Melvin Breeden, county finance director.
The state law authorizing the tax on fortune tellers is not exactly an endorsement of the occupation.
``Any person who, for compensation, shall pretend to tell fortunes or assume to act as a clairvoyant or to practice palmistry or phrenology, shall pay'' the annual tax, the law says.
``We call it prejudice,'' Nicholas said of the tax. ``Their problem is, they don't want fortune tellers.''
LENGTH: Medium: 52 linesby CNB