OCALA, FL (352today.com) – After months spent working its way through the municipal bureaucratic machinery, a recommendation that the City of Ocala get rid of its business tax receipt (BTR) requirement for businesses that operate within city limits has come to fruition.
For those who aren’t familiar, the BTR was basically a license that all businesses operating in Ocala had to acquire (read: pay for) and renew annually in order to run legally within the city.
On Friday, October 23, the city announced that the BTR was no longer required, with the adoption of Ordinance No. 2027-1.
The movement toward today’s announcement made crucial headway in August of this year, when the Ocala City Council approved a resolution removing BTR revenue from the avenues required to repay a bond issued back in 2015. From there, the proposal to eliminate the BTR went to the city’s Planning and Zoning Commission for consideration.
For most businesses, acquiring the BTR was relatively inexpensive; city staff estimated that eliminating the requirement would cost the city approximately $300,000 annually. It was generally agreed upon, however, that the goodwill and heightened perception of Ocala as a business-friendly municipality that the move would generate was more than worth that price.
The decision comes more than a month after the annual September deadline for businesses to renew their BTR, but the city has said it will not penalize those who haven’t yet renewed, and will review payments made to determine eligibility for refunds among businesses that have already renewed.
“While the ordinance eliminates City BTR requirements, businesses must continue to comply with all applicable local, state and federal licensing, permitting, zoning and building requirements,” the city’s announcement read, in part. “For more information about the ordinance, refund eligibility or applicable permitting requirements, contact the City of Ocala Growth Management Department at 352-629-8421.”