I’m sure that this will go over really well with Bob McDonnell’s base.
Restaurants and bars that buy liquor from state stores now would have to pay for the privilege of buying directly from private wholesalers under a privatization plan being prepared for unveiling by Gov. Bob McDonnell next week.
McDonnell is counting on restaurants and bars for as much as $38 million a year as part of a complex package of taxes and fees designed to make up the revenue now generated by Virginia’s state liquor monopoly.
The money would come from a new 4 percent tax that would be imposed on drinks sold in restaurants or bars, according to sources familiar with the plan. The tax would be imposed on a business’s gross receipts for alcohol sales rather than the customer’s bill.
As Jeff Schapiro puts it on Twitter, “What the’? Anti-tax guv pushing new taxes as part of liquor-privatization gambit.” Bizarre.
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