Has Issue with Voll’s Mercantile License

To The Editor:
In his constant attempts at self-aggrandizement, Mike Voll has attempted to create an election controversy by proposing a heavy mercantile tax on our local businesses.
Voll asserts that his Mercantile Tax can raise $750,000. I am familiar with the business community in Middle Township. Not all of them could be required under state law to pay a local mercantile tax. But if there are 200 businesses that can be forced to pay the tax, Voll wants to charge each business about $3,750 per year.
When Voll was last on Township Committee, he was against a Mercantile Tax. He privately has told business owners that he is against a Mercantile Tax. Now he has flip-flopped and vigorously supports a burdensome tax.
Voll is not fair to Mayor Susan DeLanzo when he implies that because I vocally opposed the idea of a Mercantile Tax, DeLanzo did not support his tax. If Voll had not stormed out of the room after making his unsupported pronouncements about the virtues of a mercantile tax, he would have heard reasonable conversation about why the idea needed more consideration.
During DeLanzo’s State of the Township address to the Middle Township Chamber of Commerce, she made it clear that she was personally opposed to the idea but her responsibility to the citizens require she not dismiss the idea until she has given it all due diligence to better understand all the positives and negatives of a mercantile tax. Voll’s assertion is an insult to an independent woman who is intelligent and of the strongest character.
As for me, I will continue to openly oppose Voll’s Mercantile Tax for the following reasons:
• The reasons given for the tax by township staff is a desire to collect data about businesses in the township to better monitor types of business and eliminate unapproved businesses. Information is already collected by the fire prevention bureau to which all businesses already pay an annual fee. There is no reason to tax businesses to gain information that is already available.
• Revenues in the amounts Voll claims he can raise are not fees but a tax on businesses. Voll at least admits that he wants to increase taxes. But it is common sense that businesses will have to add the tax to their prices and pass it along to the customers. Our residents will still pay the tax.
• None of our local businesses have an endless bank account. Middle Township is fortunate to have a very generous business community. A number of events such as Christmas in Middle, The Harvest Festival, recreational sports teams, charity fund raising events, church fund raisers, fireworks on the fourth of July and much more are all made possible because of the generosity of our local businesses. The dollars Voll wants to take away in his Mercantile Tax will likely deplete the funds allocated to these events.
• Voll cites Lower Township as having a successful Mercantile Tax. Voll fails to mention that a big part of that revenue is a fee on residential rental units. We all know that the tenants will end up paying Voll’s tax. Each rental unit already pays money to the fire prevention bureau.
Voll arrogantly asserts he will use the money his tax generates to help local businesses. Only the most arrogant government official could claim that by heavily taxing local businesses he is in fact helping them. Local businesses can promote themselves, certainly better than any government. He and his tax should be rejected.
BOB NOEL
Court House
(ED. NOTE: The author is Susan Delanzo’s campaign manager.)