County Commission Working Toward Approving Business Occupation Tax

The Stephens County Board of Commissioners continues working toward approving a business occupation tax and regulatory fees at their meeting Tuesday.

Finance Director Phyllis Ayers said that this item came from one of the budget work sessions, but had been discussed in years prior. Ayers had written an ordinance for a business occupation tax several years back, but it wasn’t adopted at that time.

Vice Chairman Michelle Ivester said that this would be a great source of revenue for the county.

“I think this is a good idea to give us an idea at what businesses we do have and I think it’s a great revenue ,” said Ivester. “I’ve looked at several counties and personally, I like Habersham’s the best because it’s not quite as high.”

Ivester adds that she suggests modeling Habersham County’s method of a fee schedule, which is based upon how many employees a business has.

She also suggests adding categories for different occupations.

All commissioners agreed that they don’t want the business occupation tax to be too big a burden on local businesses.

Moving forward, Ayers is going to amend the occupation tax ordinance to include the fees based upon number of employees, add a temporary license, add categories and exempt yard sales. There will be two public hearings on the tax in the coming meetings.