Letter to the Editor

Recycling bill will impose sales tax for the first time

This would once again have the state of Delaware lie to its neighbors at our borders, where we promote “Home of the Tax-Free Shopping,” which – thanks to the gross receipts tax– is not the truth.

In order to fund the start-up of statewide recycling, what S.B. 234 does is gut the 1982 Bottle Bill – killing off the deposit which users can have redeemed – and put in place a four-cents-a-bottle sales tax on certain carbonated beverage containers.

Delawareans need to call their legislators to demand that S.B. 234 – which on its face has admirable goals of extending recycling statewide – be amended to retain the Bottle Bill deposit, kill the proposed sales tax and support source-separated multistream recycling.

David Heit
Wilmington

http://www.delawareonline.com/article/20100504/OPINION10/100504001/1004/OPINION