City wants to boost sales tax for streets

 

Last updated 10/18/2017 at 10:06am



Grand Coulee is completing an application to form its own Transportation Benefit District, which would bring in more revenue in the form of sales taxes.

The TBD can use one of two forms for collection of special fees. Grand Coulee has decided to raise its Washington State Sales Tax locally, for non-food items, by two tenths of one percent, rather than collect fees from renewal of license tabs.

That would take total sales taxes in Grand Coulee from the current rate of 7.9 percent to 8.1 percent.

City Clerk Carol Boyce, in working with the state Department of Revenue, stated last week that the city would raise about an average of more than $4,000 a month if the TBD goes through.

The city must first approve a measure to make members of the city council the governing body of the district, the funds for which are exclusively dedicated for street improvement.

The city has until Dec. 15 to get its information to the state.

Boyce said the entire measure will go to a vote of the residents of the city at a special levy election on Feb. 13, 2018.

The measure, if approved by voters, would produce about $50,000 a year to take care of city streets.

The Dept. of Revenue says taxable sales in Grand Coulee totalled just over $30 million in 2016.

Boyce said that raising the sales tax spreads out the cost of street repair to anyone purchasing non-food items within the city limits. “People who come into the city use our streets, and our residents alone pay for the cost of repair,” Boyce said. “This spreads the cost out to those who travel on our streets.”

 

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