HARTFORD, Conn. — According to the Hartford Courant, carwash owners made a plea to the state legislature for a sales tax rescission on their services.
“Our industry is a discretionary purchase within a price-sensitive market,’” said Todd Whitehouse, owner of Connecticut Car Wash, which has four locations in central Connecticut.
Whitehouse explained to the committee through written testimony that Connecticut collected sales taxes on carwashes for about four years in the early 1990s, the article reported; however, it was rescinded because the costs to track and collect the tax were too much, and it brought in far less revenue than predicted.
The tax was reinstated in 2015, the article stated, but the proposed Senate Bill 187 would repeal it.
Paul Ferruolo, operator of Mr. Sparkle Car Wash, a self-service carwash in East Hartford, added that collecting sales tax is especially difficult for coin-operated washes, the article noted.
“The sales tax on the coin-operated carwash industry has created an extraordinary burden on many small, family-run businesses throughout the state,” Ferruolo wrote in his testimony. “This is due to the fact that we are forced to pay a sales tax when we have no mechanism to collect it.”
The committee is expected to vote later this year on the proposed tax rescission, the article concluded.
Read the full article here.
