Taxes going up in Danville

Real estate, personal property, lodging taxes increasing

DANVILLE – Taxes are going up in Danville.

Real estate, personal property, and lodging tax increases were all approved at Tuesday's city council meeting.

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One tax that's not going up is the meals tax.

A 1 percent increase, from 6 percent to 7 percent, was proposed though.

Last week, WSLS spoke to Councilman Fred Shanks about a different proposed tax, but he mentioned that he felt the proposed meals tax was not fair.

Specifically, he felt that the proposed meals and lodging taxes were too much for the respective industries to bear and the tax increases needed to be spread out in order to reduce the amount meals and hotel stays are taxed.

For comparison, the meals tax in Lynchburg and Martinsville is 6.5 percent and in Roanoke it's 5 percent.

Wednesday, the owner of Mary's Diner, Jimmy Farlow, said the vote not to increase the meals tax gives him confidence that council is listening to the citizens.

He also said the tax needs to be rolled back to the original 2 percent that the blue ribbon committee established several years ago as a cap for the meals tax.

"People would have a better budget to eat on, and it would mean a great deal to everyone. The city would replace that lost revenue in volume," Farlow emphasized.

The one other proposed tax increase that came up for a vote Tuesday night, an increase of the personal property tax on airplanes from 30 cents to 70 cents per $100 of assessed value, was voted down.