A waitress at Dixie Bones BBQ in Woodbridge.
Updated 10:30 p.m. – Local restaurant owners are voicing strong opposition to Prince William County’s meals tax, which is set to generate $42 million in Fiscal Year 2025—an increase of $10 million, or 31.25%, from the previous year.
Prince William County Board of Supervisors Chair At-large Deshundra Jefferson has signaled the meals tax will be discussed during the annual budget process this spring. "It would like to see a partial repeal of the meals tax, but it truly depends on our proposed budget for the next fiscal year," Jefferson told Potomac Local News.
The meals tax, enacted in 2022, has been a consistent contention among business owners, who argue it places additional strain on their already tight profit margins. Inflation, staffing shortages, and rising costs for food, rent, and utilities have made operating a restaurant more expensive, and many owners believe the meals tax exacerbates these challenges.
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Currently, only businesses with gross receipts over $500,000 pay a BPOL tax, a tax enacted to fund the second war between the U.S. and the British in 1812. The threshold has been in place since 2022 after the Prince William Chamber of Commerce pushed county supervisors in 2015 to increase the taxation threshold from $250,000.
Today, the county levies a BPOL tax on a business’s gross receipts and uses the funds to help fund the local government. However, its implementation can vary widely among jurisdictions, leading to disparities in business tax burdens.
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Stafford County leaders support new legislation allowing them to hike the county sales tax to pay for school construction.
Virginia State Senator Jeremy McPike (D-29, Prince William, Stafford) has introduced legislation (SB14) in the upcoming January 2024 General Assembly session that would allow any county or city to let voters decide to hike the sales tax by 1%, a fee paid at retail shops and restaurants. Delegate-Elect Joshua Cole (D-65, Fredericksburg, Stafford) said he'll introduce similar legislation in the House of Delegates when he takes office in January.
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I’m Nelson Head, owner of Dixie Bones
The Prince William County Supervisors are up for re-election this year.
As part of the campaign, the challengers and I have visited more than a hundred restaurants throughout the county. There they learned firsthand what happened when the meals tax forced restaurants to add a collective $35 million of new charges to their checks. Not surprisingly, their customers found the food suddenly too expensive, and they stopped coming in.
They heard from servers how their tips fell by half. They saw empty dining rooms, skeleton crews, and managers and owners disheartened by the struggle to survive. They listened to customers angry over having to pay yet another tax and this one for simply eating out.
These challengers know they must end the Meals Tax if our restaurants are to survive.
In the other case, only odious, meanspirited persons would attack the livelihood of small, popular restaurants and their employees and then reward themselves with a 70% pay raise. But that is exactly what incumbent supervisors did.
Well, at least these guys can still afford to eat in a restaurant if they dare to show their face.
These incumbents expect us to believe that they gave the meals tax money to schools when anyone can plainly see the $30 million of tax money sitting idle and unused in a surplus account in the county’s coffers.
This crop of self-serving supervisors, masquerading as Democrats protecting the little guy, is way, way past their sell-by dates.
We can fix this.
Please go to endmealstax.com to meet the new supervisors who will clean up this mess.
Voting is already underway. So please go to the polls and vote for candidates who will Save Our Restaurants.
Nelson Head
Founder, Dixie Bones BBQ
Woodbridge
Restaurant owners in Prince William County are piping hot about the county's meals tax and want it repealed.
On Thursday Saturday, June 8, they'll join the Virginia Restaurant, Lodging, and Travel Association for two rallies to end the tax that they say has burdened independently-owned restaurants and their. One rally will occur in eastern Prince Willaim and another in the west.
