Joe Morrissey (Photo by Jay Paul)
Asked at Monday’s ChamberRVA mayoral debate whether they would raise taxes, all five candidates on the stage said no, including front-runner Joe Morrissey.
Last week, however, the former commonwealth’s attorney and state delegate told the Richmond Free Press he supported instituting a sin tax on cigarettes to generate money for new school construction.
“Mr. Morrissey said he would ask Richmond City Council to impose a tax of 75 cents to 85 cents per pack of cigarettes — akin to the cigarette tax that Norfolk, Virginia Beach, Petersburg and other Virginia localities now charge — with the revenue to pay for replacing or overhauling existing school buildings,” the newspaper reported.
This isn’t the first time Morrissey has posed the idea on the campaign trail. At a September forum hosted by RVA Business Works at the Virginia Historical Society, he suggested eliminating a tax on businesses and replacing it with a cigarette tax to make up the revenue, multiple outlets reported.
A cigarette tax could generate as much as $30 million each year, Morrissey told the Richmond Free Press. In the spring, City Council rejected a 60-cents-per-pack tax that would have generated an estimated $5 million annually.
Asked about his position on the matter, Morrissey says he will ask Council to pass a cigarette tax so long as “every dime” goes to Richmond Public Schools.
As for his answer at the debate, he says he thought the question was about real estate taxes, personal property taxes, the admissions tax and the meals tax, none of which he would raise.
“This is something that would be a brand-new tax,” Morrissey says. “It’s not raising; it would be creating a new tax, so I hope that clarifies it.”
No other candidate in the seven-person field has proposed raising or levying any new taxes if elected.
