Two St. Louis Tim Hortons restaurants closed over the Thanksgiving weekend — neither one was the Maplewood shop, according to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.
Show Me Hospitality, the franchisee that opened its first Tim Hortons in 2015, in Maplewood, had its sales tax license revoked in June.
The shops on Tucker Boulevard and in the Central West End’s Cortex district were closed.
Businesses’ sales tax license are revoked for failure to remit sales tax collected from customers or failure to remit income taxes withheld from employees.
The Missouri Department of Revenue sued Show Me Hospitality on June 2 to enforce tax liens against the franchisee for nearly $70,000 in back taxes due, including interest. According to court records, administrative judgments for those tax liens have not yet been paid.
“Our attorney has been in contact with the State of Missouri to resolve the sales tax issues,” Eric Sigurdson, the company’s president, told the Post-Dispatch.
Maybe the disparity between the City of St. Louis shops vs. the Maplewood shop has to do with differences in how the sales tax is collected and disbursed. I believe St. Louis County collects the local tax and divvies it up to the appropriate municipalities, school districts, etc. St. Louis city probably does it more directly, maybe making the situation apparent quicker. Just guessing — clearly we don’t have all the information yet. For each retail sale, there are state taxes, county taxes and local city taxes. In St. Louis, the city is a county.
There are some things that shouldn’t be exploited for economies of scale. Your friendly neighborhood cafe is one of them.
So, Maplewood store is still open and operating with a revoked sales tax license since June. Isn’t that tax fraud or something? Apparently the sales tax I pay for donuts and coffee everyday is just more income for the owners?
Are they not paying their other taxes either?
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