City of Richmond — how I love thee… your potholes, your vacant buildings, your parking garages, your baseball stadiums.
OK, maybe not the baseball stadiums. Or the team. Whoever thought to brand that baseball team with a mascot named Nutzi? In black and red uniforms? Waaay too close to the line, gentlemen…
But let’s say you don’t want to head out to Nutzi Party Night at the Diamond. Or pay $8 for a parking on a lot probably left behind by the Yankees. Maybe Richmond has something else to offer other than… restaurants? I dunno.
Garden tours! Yes, gardens! Something to remind folks that it doesn’t have to be all crumbling brick and patchwork asphalt all the time! Surely, Richmond’s city fathers could see the wisdom in showing the better side of the River City?
The legislation would cost the city about $4,000 in revenue annually and builds on existing exemptions for museums and botanical gardens, said Parker C. Agelasto, one of four co-patrons of the resolution.
Agelasto said Thursday that the issue came to his attention as a result of uneven enforcement by city tax assessors.
Richmond City Council picking winners and losers? Why — that never happens…
“Essentially one organization was singled out when other organizations were not required to pay this tax,” he said.
The city has asked Richmond groups hosting Historic Garden Week events as part of the Garden Club of Virginia’s annual statewide series to file monthly tax reports while similar groups go untaxed, he said.
The Fan District Association, Ginter Park Residents Association and Museum District Association all are cited in a memo accompanying the resolution as groups that have similar tours but have not been assessed admissions taxes.
Leave aside the notion that someone thought for a moment that it was a good idea to tax garden tours. When even the winners in this exchange are saying this is a bad deal, the entire city ought to rally to the standard — no?
Of course not… that’s tax revenue, folks! And someone in city government must have it.
The city has employees assigned to audit tax collection but lacks the resources it would need to track down every delinquent dime, said Norman Butts, deputy chief administrative officer for finance and administration.
Butts cautioned against creating more tax loopholes for a city already “strapped for cash.”
Officials estimate that the city will bring in about $2.5 million in admissions tax revenues in fiscal year 2015.
“I know that in our discussions on exemptions that the city exempts something like over 20 million in real estate taxes for rehabilitation and tax exemptions for the elderly and disabled,” Butts said. “The precedential value is something that concerns me if this were to go forward.”
God forbid that we overburden government by introducing tax cuts — right? How onerous…
In any event, good on Mr. Agelasto for correcting a problem that long needed correcting. Perhaps — in forgoing the $4,000 in tax revenue Richmond was receiving in this 7% admissions tax — this might kick off a conversation as to how these smaller taxes tend to have the opposite impact on Richmond’s tax base.
Heck, maybe folks will brave the barely-paved streets to go see the Lewis Ginter gardens and pay that food and beverage tax (with sales tax) when they stop and get lunch. Grow a business or two? But that’s thinking ahead of the game…
