Proposal To End $1K Fee For Massage Therapists Considered In Herndon

Herndon VA

11 April, 2022

5:43 PM

Description

HERNDON, VA — Herndon Town Council is hosting a public hearing Tuesday night on proposed amendments to change how massage businesses are designated in the town code. Back in January, a group of massage therapists who operated businesses in Herndon received a notice informing them they were required to pay a flat fee of $1,000 annually for their town business license — something that hadn't had to do for years. "It was a tax rate that we were incorrectly charging the massage therapist businesses," said Robert Tang, Herndon's director of finance in January. "We haven't been assessing that rate for all massage therapists. It currently is $1,000. Nothing has changed. It has always been $1,000." Even though the $1,000 fee has been in the town code since 1992, it hadn't been collected for years. In preparation of the fiscal year 2024 budget, the town ran a financial audit at the beginning of January. That's when Tang, who has been the director of finance since April 2021, said he discovered the discrepancy. A group of massage therapists, including Meg Donnelly of NoVA Weekend Warriors and Casey White of White H.A.R.T. Holistic and Rehabilitation Therapy, brought their concerns to the town council at a January public hearing. Several town council members expressed their support for the group's appeal. The council directed Tang to draft a proposal to change the town code so that it would go into effect in Fiscal Year 2023. At an April 5 work session, the council approved Tang's amendments to update the town code, which define what constituted massage therapy and a massage establishment, and identify a massage therapist as "any individual certified as a massage therapist by the Board of Nursing of the Commonwealth of Virginia." The amendments also remove the $1,000 yearly fee for "massage parlors" and included massage therapists and massage establishments with other business and personal services. As such, they would be subject to "an annual license tax of $0.21 per $100.00 of gross receipts of the base year" for businesses making over $100,000. Businesses under the business and personal services classification pay $30 with gross profits under $50,000, $50 with gross profits between $50,000 and $100,000. If approved, the amendments would go into effect on July 1. "As of right now, everybody's on board and it looks good from a supporting small business perspective," Donnelly said, in a phone interview on Monday. "It's going to change for 2023 and beyond. It will put us in personal services, as far as the coding goes, and then it will bring us back in line with the majority of all the other businesses in Herndon." The one hiccup in the process has been the code change could only be made for FY 2023 and not sooner. That meant the massage business owners still had to deal with the $1,000 fee they were assessed in January. To help them out, the town allowed the owners to pay what they thought was owed based on what they had paid in previous years and then they could file an appeal. "It wasn't what I would consider the best scenario, but it seemed to be the only scenario to move ahead quickly," Donnelly said. As part of the appeal, the town inspector would visit each business to confirm that it was an establishment providing massage therapy and then designate them as a personal service provider, making them exempt from the fee. The public will be able to provide input on the amendments during Tuesday night's public hearing at the Herndon Council Chambers.