Spring Break
Board rejects tax increase
One cent increase not seen as being used properly
Melissa Meador
Issue date: 4/25/08 Section: News
Starkville Board of Aldermen are back at the drawing board in finding funding for the construction of a conference center after a proposed penny raise in the tourism tax was shot down in the state Senate last week.
The tax, which would have risen from nine percent to 10 percent, never made it out of committee. The tax increase was to have went towards funding a conference center around the Cooley Center property on the edge of the Mississippi State campus.
District 16 senator Bennie Turner, who brought the proposal before the Senate, said members of the committee felt that the issue needed more research before the raise could be reconsidered.
"The chairman over the subcommittee felt that the tax was being applied to issues that originally had not been intended in the authorization," Turner said. "He wanted further study that it was being properly used."
Veranda owner Jay Yates, who is also the president of the Golden Triangle Restaurant Association, said the majority of restaurant and hotel owners in Starkville opposed the tax.
"Basically what happened is the restaurant community was unaware this was being proposed, and it just came up on everyone," Yates said. "We found out about it, and we wished we would have known it was getting proposed because it came as such a big shock to all the restaurant and hotel owners."
Ward 5 Alderman Matt Cox said he felt there were two key areas of concern for both the state legislature and Starkville restaurant owners.
"There was a perception an additional penny tax would have kept people away from the restaurants, and that was the thought when the original tax was passed. That was the first concern," Cox said. "Secondly because a conference center in this area would have been a public investment, some thought it would have spurred new private developments. That would be increased competition."
Yates and the rest of the Golden Triangle Restaurant Association were instrumental in bringing forth the problems of the tax to the state legislature.
The tax, which would have risen from nine percent to 10 percent, never made it out of committee. The tax increase was to have went towards funding a conference center around the Cooley Center property on the edge of the Mississippi State campus.
District 16 senator Bennie Turner, who brought the proposal before the Senate, said members of the committee felt that the issue needed more research before the raise could be reconsidered.
"The chairman over the subcommittee felt that the tax was being applied to issues that originally had not been intended in the authorization," Turner said. "He wanted further study that it was being properly used."
Veranda owner Jay Yates, who is also the president of the Golden Triangle Restaurant Association, said the majority of restaurant and hotel owners in Starkville opposed the tax.
"Basically what happened is the restaurant community was unaware this was being proposed, and it just came up on everyone," Yates said. "We found out about it, and we wished we would have known it was getting proposed because it came as such a big shock to all the restaurant and hotel owners."
Ward 5 Alderman Matt Cox said he felt there were two key areas of concern for both the state legislature and Starkville restaurant owners.
"There was a perception an additional penny tax would have kept people away from the restaurants, and that was the thought when the original tax was passed. That was the first concern," Cox said. "Secondly because a conference center in this area would have been a public investment, some thought it would have spurred new private developments. That would be increased competition."
Yates and the rest of the Golden Triangle Restaurant Association were instrumental in bringing forth the problems of the tax to the state legislature.
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