A proposal for local sales, meals and rooms or gasoline taxes in Montpelier, Barre and Berlin is drawing mostly negative reviews from local business owners. The three central Vermont municipalities say if they go with local option taxes, they want to impose them in the same way so they do not end up competing against one another.
Restaurant and inn owners say they don’t want to see any new tax tagged onto the state’s nine percent rooms and meals tax. But municipal officials say they need more revenues, and that raising property taxes is getting more difficult.