Fairfax County Meals Tax

One issue that has been top-of-mind for the restaurant industry here in the Commonwealth in 2024 is the proliferation of prepared food taxes, and the increases to them in places where they already exist. Localities all over Virginia are coming down off of the funding sugar high of the COVID-19 pandemic and its associated storm of federal funds raining down on cities, counties, and towns throughout the country. In the absence of those now-dried-up funds, localities are casting about for ways to make up that gap in their expanding budgets.
 
The 2020 General Assembly passed a law repealing the requirement for these counties to hold a referendum prior to food tax increases, making those taxes very attractive to local governing bodies, who only need a majority vote to institute or increase them. Thus, VRLTA has spent lots of time in the last two years demonstrating the consequences of these taxes upon the local diners and citizens who end up paying a majority of them, as well as the low-income households upon whom these taxes fall most heavily.
 
Most recently Fairfax County has started the process to institute a prepared foods tax. As the most populous county in the Commonwealth, this is a major concern for the restaurateurs there, and VRLTA has been supporting a broad coalition including various local Chambers, RAMW, and various restaurants amongst other stakeholders fighting that tax.
 
Most recently, our coalition testified before the County Board of Supervisors at their meeting to discuss the County’s surplus (or “carryover,” as their preferred term). Fairfax has chosen to make this tax part of their overall budgeting process, which makes our resistance all the more difficult and all the more important. We are extremely grateful for the leaders who showed up to make the case against this tax in person there on September 24.