The DC government is getting ahead of itself in looking to pass the food truck Sales Tax Act prior to the passage of the new food truck regulations.  The issue is a bit more serious than it initially appears.  As the DCFTA explains:

Under current food truck regulations, a vending license holder, typically the owner, must be present on the truck for it to operate. For the food truck to operate without the owner, he or she must obtain additional vending licenses for employees. As a result, a single food truck has multiple licenses holders, each of which pays fees as if it were the business owner.

The Sales Tax Act would make each license holder responsible for the business’ sales tax and could possibly require each employee to pay the business’ full amount of tax collected, resulting in a food truck paying double, triple or even more the amount of tax actually collected and threatening the ability of the food truck to remain in business.

“We don’t believe the Sales Tax Act’s intent is to threaten the viability of food trucks, but obviously it cannot be passed with the current food truck regulations still in place,” Ruddell-Tabisola said. “It only makes sense for the tax act to be adopted in tandem with passage of the Mayor’s proposed new food truck rules.”