White Claw Maker Set to Open $400M Plant in South Carolina
Thursday, November 12th, 2020
On Monday, Governor Henry McMaster traveled to Florence County for a ceremonial signing of S.C. Representative Jay Jordan’s business license tax law.
The actual bill was signed into law by McMaster in October.
Greater Florence Chamber of Commerce President Mike Miller said out of 271 cities in South Carolina, almost every city had a different business license process.
This created challenges for businesses operating in multiple cities.
“One thing you don’t want to have to think about when opening a business is this is the model that is in my city, but if I open up in Charleston, Columbia, Sumter, or the beach I don’t know where to begin and of course they don’t," said Miller.
Miller said this legislation was a long time coming and will simplify things for business owners as they grow throughout the state
“You’re going to have a common portal, the application form most importantly is very clear and the same everywhere and the fees are much easier to comprehend and how they’ll be distributed and so forth," said Miller.
David Fountain knows all about operating businesses in multiple cities. He co-owns UPS store franchises in Florence, Conway, Sumter and Charleston.
Fountain said any kind of standardization is a good thing for small businesses.
“It’s a stressful time when you’re trying to grow a business and going through and trying to jump through a bunch of hoops, so this should help us in the future as we continue growing and expanding our business," said Fountain.
With multiple locations and different due dates for business license fees, Fountain said the common portal is going to be very helpful for their stores in the future.
“Right now, their due at different times for us, so we have five different business licenses coming up at different times, so that’s going to help us a lot just in the bookkeeping sense of things," said Fountain.
Fountain is thankful for the people who helped put this legislation together to make things easier on local businesses.
“Anything that can be done to simplify things or maybe take a load off is a great thing and it’ll help us all expand and grow," said Fountain.