The county will lose money from the many small, family owned businesses that are going under or that have closed and they need to bring in big box stores to make up for it. I can only imagine how much the Tiki bar, like it or not, helped Calvert. I read the Thai2 place in Solomons is closing, the former Striped Rock on the island is closed, who knows what will happen with Kingfishers and Stoney's Broomes Island.
As a small business owner, my opinion is that many of us won't be around in a few years.
Lose money how?
Sales tax? The Counties don't get a penny of that.
Property tax? Maybe. But they get paid whether a business is open or not. Use the Tiki Bar as the example. The owners, or supposed owners, have to pay the property tax whether they're slinging Margaritas or not. Business licenses are a drop in the bucket and don't even cover the staff cost to issue them.
Business Income Tax? Goes to the state.
Personal Property Tax? Yes, the County gets some of that.
Personal Income Tax? Yes, if the owners and employees live in the County. If they live elsewhere then their County of residence gets that.
The thing that is a scam is the "rising assessments will lower your property taxes" we always hear. Well, no. Yes the rate goes down because of the Constant Yield Rate requires the government not collect more in dollars next year than it collected last year so the
tax rate goes down. In order to capture the property taxes from rising assessments is by increasing the tax rate to above the Constant Yield Rate. What was done in Calvert for years was just keep the old rate, which was higher than the CYR.
The way it's set up is that officials can truthfully say to people when they complain about their property taxes going up "But we didn't raise the tax rate. Your taxes went up because your property is worth more".