Two local citzens spoke out against the proposed three percent excise tax on rental cars during the Canton City Council's regular meeting Thursday evening.
Angie Wiggins, Area Rental Manager with Enterprise Rent-A-Car, felt the singling out of one rental car company was not "a good way to create a thriving downtown.”
She went on to say that though Enterprise is a national chain, each franchise is run independently. The excise tax would hurt Canton residents more than it would help them, she said, because the employees at Enterprise are locals and many locals rent cars from Enterprise.
One such local is Daniel Schilling. Schilling agreed with the premise that a tax needed to be leveraged in order to generate funds to revitalize downtown, but felt the singling out of "one entity" for a tax increase was unfair.
Schilling suggested a beverage or restaurant excise tax, which would shift the tax burden onto a larger number of businesses.
"That way, the people who had the largest interest in seeing downtown renovated would be footing the bill," Schilling said.
Mayor Gene Hobgood defended his position on the rental car tax, saying there were three entities in Canton that would be subject to the tax, not just Enterprise.
Additionally, the tax would only be on consumers who rent cars in Canton. People who never have a need for a rental car will never pay the tax. Hobgood felt this was the "fairest kind of tax there is."
Hobgood also reminded the audience that other cities in Cherokee County such as Woodstock have the same kind of excise tax. However, critics of the tax brought up that the tax burden on individual car rental businesses in other cities are spread more evenly because there are more of them.