When Louisiana Governor Jeff Landry called a special session late this year, it was clear that raising the sales tax rate and expanding the scope of services taxed were squarely in the lawmakers’ crosshairs.
Although much of the political conversation centered on efforts to reduce both personal and corporate income taxes, CLA was focused on the list of newly taxable services intended to offset the reduction in state revenues due to those income tax cuts. As a result, the laundromat industry’s trade association engaged in a lobbying effort for the second time in the past decade to retain the sales tax exemption for self-service laundry in Louisiana.
CLA made the case that laundromats are uniquely qualified to remain exempt based on the nature of the essential service provided, the largely lower income families who rely on laundromat services, and the fact that vended transactions make consistent and accurate collection of sales tax nearly impossible.
And, when the dust settled after the frenzy of that special session and myriad, often-conflicting proposed bills, “receipts from coin-operated washing and drying machines in commercial laundromats” had retained their long-standing sales tax exemption.
This successful measure proved even more critical considering that Louisiana’s already highest-in-the-country sales tax rate was bumped to 5 percent. With local sales tax added, most laundromats would have been otherwise required to remit in excess of 10 percent of their gross revenue to the state. In fact, CLA’s efforts and those of its local members have saved the average laundromat in the state more than $30,000 per year.
“Protecting the sales tax exemption for laundromats is CLA’s top legislative priority,” said CLA President and CEO Brian Wallace. “This recent successful effort in Louisiana and the one mounted earlier this year in Nebraska to retain our sales tax exemptions show the incredible value of working together as an industry to protect our interests.”
CLA also recognized its Elite Strategic Corporate Allies – Alliance Laundry Systems, Cents, Dexter Laundry, and Girbau North America – for their financial support of the association’s crucial advocacy efforts.
