Privilege licenses are the latest hot topic for the Henderson City Council.
City Manager Eric Williams reported to the council at its regular meeting Monday night that he sent letters to 15 businesses Friday to notify them that they are delinquent on their privilege license payments for the current licensing year, which ends May 31.
No on thinks those are the only city businesses that haven’t paid for privilege licenses.
The privilege license is obscure enough that Mayor Clem Seifert said he was on the City Council for six years before he learned that he was supposed to be buying an annual privilege license.
The privilege license is a tax businesses pay for the privilege of operating in the city. The amount of the tax depends on the type of business, not its size, and some of the charges are set by state statute. In its search for more revenue, Henderson last year doubled the privilege license fees that weren’t fixed by the state.
The price of the privilege license is as little as $2.50 for the neighborhood ice cream man and as much as $300 for a carnival. With 130 categories, and with some businesses fitting in more than one, the privilege license is far from simple.
The table of fees “is ridiculously complicated,” Seifert said, drawing instant agreement from council member Mike Rainey.
Deryl von Williams, the owner of The Everything Store, a consignment shop on South Garnett Street, said the cost of the privilege license is neither simple nor fair. She said her small business must pay $50 a year, but auto dealers are charged only $25. The auto dealer fee is set by state statute.
Other oddities appear in the privilege license list. Some are state-mandated, such as the $200 fee for movie theaters vs. the $100 fee for outdoor theaters. Others are the city’s doing, such as the $60 fee for flour mills and the $30 fee for the grocery stores that sell the mills’ products.
Von Williams is waging a one-woman tax protest against the privilege license and refusing to pay. Her business is one of the 15 the city manager notified Friday; according to his list, she owes $127.47.
She doesn’t dispute the amount, but she said the city must do a thorough job of charging and collecting the fees from all city businesses.
“I’m making a point: Charge everybody the fees, or don’t charge nobody the fees,” she said.
Council member Lonnie Davis asked about merchants who come into the city on the weekends and set up shop in parking lots and at street corners.
According to the city code, those merchants must obtain a $100 privilege license (an amount set by the state) and an itinerant merchant’s license. City officials doubt many of those merchants are complying.
“Really, do we believe that these folks who are selling statues in the parking lot of Wendy’s on Saturday morning come by the City Hall offices prior to and get their selves straight?” Seifert said.
The city manager said many of them do get itinerant merchant licenses but not privilege licenses.
“There’s a thousand dollars for Corey (Williams) right there,” Seifert said, if the city could sell the required privilege licenses to itinerant merchants.
There’s also $1,546.52 owed by the 15 businesses the city manager sent letters last week.
There’s even more money in privilege licenses for the city, if only the Finance Department had a list of all of the businesses in Henderson. But no such list exists.
“We miss so much money,” Seifert said.
Eric Williams said the city has no electronic way to compare the privilege license list against the list of nonresidential water accounts to look for businesses that aren’t paying for privilege licenses.
Seifert suggested printing out alphabetized lists and going through them by hand.
Elissa Yount said the maintenance of the business list and the enforcement of the privilege license will be easy once Henderson creates the database and spreadsheet it needs. “Once you get it,” she said, “you’ll have it.”
Rainey said such a list is essential. Once the city knows who is and isn’t paying, the council can consider whether the table of fees is proper.
Williams has asked the 15 businesses known to be delinquent to pay the city by May 6, the Friday before the next City Council meeting, or have the matter turned over to the city attorney or the council for action. In addition to The Everything Store, the businesses and the amounts they owe are:
* Harris Wholesale Carpet Outlet, 1910 N. Garnett St, $149.99.
* McGillicuddy & Co., 420G-2 Raleigh Road, $75.01.
* David Treadwell, 1021 Thurston St., $75.01.
* Robert Taborn, doing business as Experience Cleaning Service, 836 Lamb St., $75.01.
* Don Eatmon, 176 Old Watkins Road, $90.
* Catjess Graphics, 420 W. Rockspring St., $75.01.
* Livingwater Filter, P.O. Box 58, $149.99.
* Williams Funeral Home, 104 S. Chestnut St., $159.07.
* Expert Lawn Service, 111 Westbury Drive, Oxford, $75.01.
* Frank Terry, doing business as Terry’s Co., 925 Lehman St., $90.
* James Bullock, 456 Carver School Road, $45.
* Moonlighter Landscape & Tree, 2619 Hicksboro Road, $75.01.
* Tyson’s Barber Shop, 502 Rockspring St., $86.25.
* La estrella de oro, 1366 N. Garnett St., $198.69.