Revere Chamber battles local tax hike

REVERE – Mayor Thomas Ambrosino says local option meals and hotel taxes will add $900,000 in badly-needed tax revenue to the city budget but local merchants want City Council members to consider the impact of more taxes on local businesses.The Revere Chamber of Commerce has asked councilors to allow Chamber members to comment on the local option taxes at today’s 4 p.m. council meeting.”Our reason to appear is to voice our concerns over the proposed .75 percent meals tax,” Chamber Executive Director Laurie Leone wrote her members earlier this week in urging them to attend to today’s meeting.”The local option tax, if adopted by Revere by the Aug. 31 deadline, would add .75 percent to the newly increased state sales tax of 6.25 percent to the sales of all prepared meals and beverages within the city of Revere, beginning Oct. 1, 2009,” Leone warned her members by electronic mail on Aug. 5.But Ambrosino says the city needs the 75 cents per $100 tax on meals and an additional 2 percent hotel and motel tax and he has asked councilors to approve both taxes.”I recognize that there may be some in the local business community opposed to these tax increases. Especially in a difficult economy, with all businesses struggling, raising taxes is not a pleasant policy choice,” Ambrosino told councilors last month.He said the city needs the $900,000 in estimated revenue to be raised over the next year from the taxes “to survive.”Even with extra money from meals and motel taxes, Ambrosino said the city must draw on reserves funds to bridge a $2 million gap in the city plan for the budget year that began July 1.The city has already cut municipal jobs, reduced work hours for other employees and closed City Hall and the Police Department records office on Fridays to save money. Municipal unions have helped cut costs by deferring negotiated pay raises and, in the case of teachers and school administrators, taking unpaid furlough days.