The Coin Laundry Association and local chapters fight against sales tax proposals in six states threatening local laundry owners’ bottom line

OAKBROOK TERRACE, Ill. – November 5, 2013 – In an unprecedentedly busy set of spring legislative sessions across the country, the Coin Laundry Association and its local affiliates mounted six successful campaigns to protect – and in one case, strengthen – the sales tax exemption for the vended laundry industry, effectively saving laundromat owners at least $20 million in potential laundry tax in 2013.

The states of Minnesota, Ohio, Louisiana, Maine and North Carolina all pushed tax reform plans that would have eliminated the sales tax exemption for laundries and could have cost laundromat owners $10,000 to $15,000 a year per store.

In addition, the Wisconsin Self-Service Laundry Association was successful in extending the current exemption beyond “coin-operated” to include card-based transactions, which paves the way for owners to adopt new alternative payment system technologies and make their laundries more successful.

“A core group of amazing volunteers stepped up to respond to the threat and ensure that all laundries were protected,” said CLA President and CEO Brian Wallace. “They made phone calls, testified at committee hearings, kept their local members informed, spent their own dollars to travel and supported lobbying efforts to battle the laundry tax.”

Lobbyists representing the CLA worked closely with state House and Senate legislators, as well as committee staffers, to explain the unfairness of imposing a sales tax on vended laundries.

“The North Carolina General Assembly undertook a serious effort to reform its tax code during the 2013 session,” said North Carolina lobbyist Charles B. Neely, Jr. of Williams Mullen. “The chairman of the Senate Finance Committee proposed a comprehensive rewrite of the tax code, which would have significantly broadened the sales tax base, including removing the current exemption from the sales tax for coin-operated laundries.”

“Ultimately, the House passed its reform legislation without revoking the current tax exemption for coin-operated laundries,” Neely added. “When the legislation went to the Senate, significant changes were made to the House legislation, but the Senate also decided not to revoke the current sales tax exemption for coin-operated laundries. The calls made by CLA members to key Senators were important in preserving the sales tax exemption.”

“The efforts made by our affiliate volunteers over the past several months illustrate perfectly the value of association,” Wallace stated, “that is, an organization through which people with a common business interest may work together to protect and grow an industry.”