Tax Type
BPOL Tax
Local Taxes
Description
Peddlers
Topic
Credits
Local Power to Tax
Local Taxes Discussion
Date Issued
04-02-1992
[Opinion - Virginia Attorney General: 1992 at 161]
REQUEST BY: The Honorable Benjamin L. Pinckard Commissioner of the Revenue for Franklin County P.O. Box 586 Rocky Mount, Virginia 24151
OPINION BY: Mary Sue Terry, Attorney General
OPINION:
You ask whether a county, in levying a license tax on peddlers, may grant a credit toward the license tax due for merchants' capital and property taxes paid to the county by a business that also is subject to the peddlers' license tax.
I. Applicable Statutes
Sections 58.1-3703 and 58.1-3717 of the Code of Virginia permit the imposition of local license taxes on peddlers and itinerant merchants.
Section 58.1-3704 directs that, "whenever any county, city or town imposes a license tax on merchants, the same shall be in lieu of a tax on the capital of merchants, as defined by § 58.1-3509."
Section 58.1-3705 requires that "whenever any county, city or town levies a license tax, the basis for such tax, whether it be gross receipts or otherwise, shall be the same for all persons engaged in the same business, trade, occupation or calling."
II. Locality May Not Impose Both Merchants' Capital Tax and License Tax on Same Business; "Peddler" Not "Merchant" for Purposes of Merchants' License Tax
Section 58.1-3703 authorizes localities to levy and assess license taxes on certain businesses, and § 58.1-3509 authorizes localities to impose merchants' capital taxes. § 58.1-3704 provides, however, that a locality may not impose both a merchants' capital tax and a license tax on the same merchant.
Furthermore, a prior Opinion of this Office concludes that a "peddler," as defined in § 58.1-3717(A), is not a "merchant" for purposes of § 58.1-3704. See 1989 Att'y Gen. Ann. Rep. 315, 317; see also 1984-1985 Att'y Gen. Ann. Rep. 339, 340 (defining "merchant"). Because only merchants are subject to the merchant's capital tax, it is my opinion that a locality has no authority to impose a merchants' capital tax on a peddler.
III. Locality May Not Grant Credit Toward Peddlers' License Tax for Personal Property Tax Paid by Peddler
Section 58.1-3705 requires that a locality imposing business license taxes impose them on the same basis for all persons engaged in the same business. A local ordinance that grants a credit toward the peddlers' license tax otherwise due, for personal property taxes paid by the peddler, on its face taxes those peddlers who also pay personal property taxes on a different basis from those who do not. Such differential treatment, in my opinion, would violate the uniformity requirement of § 58.1-3705.
Attorney General's Opinion