Small business is the life of our community. Whether it is reducing red tape, advocating for lower B&O taxes, or even giving a break, by way of business license fee removal, to those businesses that are just getting established, the results speak for themselves. Healthier business, healthier community.
In 2018, I got into a heated debate at the Association of Washington Cities conference. The topic, the efficacy of business licenses. More-or-less, what’s the value provided to the business for paying the license vs what’s the value provided to the city for having the license paid for? After a decade in municipal government, I still cannot figure out what value either party gets in this transaction. Which is why I proposed to the Orting City Council to eliminate business license fees altogether.
Unfortunately, you can’t win 100% of what you want in every political battle and we compromised at any business doing less than $10k gross sales per year in Orting would have a $0 business license fee. Anything above that would be $50.
Here is the introductory Ordinance in 2018.
In 2019, the Orting City Council re-affirmed my license fee structure.