Helen Karriem will have another bookkeeping task starting March 1 — one her son helped create for her.
Still, she’s not fretting about it. Besides, she’s known for a while this was probably coming.
“I’ve been doing this for 30 years,” said the owner of Helen’s Kitchen, a soul food restaurant on the north side of Columbus. “So you just have to do what you have to do.”
Rep. Kabir Karriem (D-Columbus) was among 91 Mississippi House members and 48 senators to pass a new 2-percent restaurant sales tax for Columbus in January, with funds allocated for tourism, economic development and recreation. Gov. Phil Bryant signed the bill into law on Tuesday, leaving just one hurdle before tax collections can begin in March.
The city is required to run three legal notices with The Dispatch before the tax can be levied. The first of those will print on Friday. Columbus is not required to host public meetings about the tax.
However, citizens can call for a referendum — a public vote — on the tax by delivering a petition to City Hall no later than 5 p.m. Feb. 25. That petition must include signatures from at least 2,000 city residents who are registered voters, according to City Attorney Jeff Turnage. If the tax is forced to a vote, it would require 60-percent voter approval to pass.
Ward 3 Councilman Charlie Box said he would be “very surprised” if there is resistance to the tax from Columbus citizens.
“I can’t believe there would be (a petition against the tax),” he said. “Most of the people support it and realize it’s good for the city. I’d be surprised.”
Workers at Skeets Hot Dogs, a small fast food restaurant, seemed to agree with Box on Wednesday, though they asked not to be identified in The Dispatch.
“It sounds like a tiny tax,” one said. “As long as it doesn’t take money out of my checks, I’m alright with that.”
“And as long as it doesn’t make my burger cost more,” quipped a customer sitting across from the counter.
As ambivalent as some in the public seem to the new restaurant sales tax, the issue provided a sore spot for debate among officials on the local and state level dating back to fall 2017.
A county-wide tax, which had been on the books in some form since the 1980s, expired in June 2018 after legislators disagreed on what restaurants would collect it. At issue was the “floor” — the old tax required only restaurants with annual food and beverage revenue of $325,000 or more to collect it, while resolutions from both Columbus City Council and Lowndes County Board of Supervisors wanted the renewed bill to require all businesses to collect the tax on those sales, regardless of revenue. With no agreement, the tax, which raised nearly $2 million in Fiscal Year 2017, died in committee.
This year, legislators struck a compromise, requiring the tax to be collected for the next four years only in the Columbus city limits but at businesses where food and beverage sales are at least $100,000 annually.
From collections, the city will receive $400,000 per year, and the county $300,000, for recreation. The Golden Triangle Development LINK will get $250,000 for economic development.
The rest will go to the Columbus-Lowndes Convention and Visitors Bureau for tourism. That will be about half of what CVB received under the old tax (which was $1.7 million in FY 2017). But Executive Director Nancy Carpenter said it’s a better deal than the past eight months when the organization was receiving virtually no new revenue.
“I’m thrilled we’ve got all this behind us,” Carpenter said. “I’m certainly excited. … In a couple months, we’ll start receiving funding again and I’m looking forward to that.”
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