Legislation recently introduced in the House would provide restaurants with pandemic assistance.
House Bill 2789 would allow restaurants required to operate at less than full capacity because of restrictions imposed by Gov. Tom Wolf to apply to the Department of Revenue to convert an amount of sales tax collected from their sales of food and beverage into a grant.
If approved, any amount of sales tax converted would not have to be repaid by the restaurant.
Restaurants would be eligible until they can operate at 100 percent. At that time, they would then resume remitting collected sales tax to the state.
“Restaurant owners across the state are struggling and may not survive the devastation of the Wolf administration’s extreme limitations on their operations,” Rep. Gary W. Day (R-Berks/Lehigh), who introduced the bill, said. “My legislation would allow these businesses to convert their sales tax revenues into grant funds, giving them the help they so desperately need. I truly think this is a viable solution to aid our hurting restaurants, their owners, and employees.”
Restaurants are currently operating on 25 percent capacity.
Last week, restaurant owners voiced their opposition to Wolf’s latest restaurant restrictions.
The restaurant industry employs more than 580,000 Pennsylvanians.