NORTH MYRTLE BEACH, SC (WBTW) – North Myrtle Beach could see a one percent sales tax increase. Most of the money would be used to attract more visitors to the area. The chamber of commerce says they’ve worked on getting the tax for about eight years now.
Many people would call the city of North Myrtle Beach a tourist destination. Jeri Mccumbee, chairwoman of the North Myrtle Beach chamber of commerce says many people don’t want to see a one percent sales tax but she says that’ll drive the tourism industry even more.
“There would be money for more out of area marketing which would bring more people into the area in the off-season time frame, so that is when we really need to look to bring visitors to the city so we can have all the luxuries we have now. They come to us based on the amount of people that visit us it’s not based on how many people live here.”
If council were to pass the sales tax, eighty percent would go to out of area marketing. Twenty percent of that money would go to the city. Of that twenty percent, some of that percentage could go to property tax relief.
Mccumbee says if tourists are going to keep going to North Myrtle Beach, the city has a lot of improvements they need to make and the sales tax could help.
“We have parking issues we need to look into those, we have out water drainage we need to address and then we have roads and then we have power and lights and different infrastructure things that we need to do in the city.”
About a month ago, you may remember the viral Facebook post about the compromised water in North Myrtle Beach.
City officials said there was no truth to the post but News13 asked if this stemmed the urgency for the sales tax. Mccumbee said no.
“It’s not that it’s more urgent. It’s always been urgent. We always need more tourists to come to our area. We always need capital improvements and we always want to offer relief to our citizens, so it’s always been urgent. We just feel like the time is now.”
News13 reached out to the mayor and every member of city council to ask where they stand on passing the tax. We only heard back from council member Fred Coyne.
He said in a statement “I am split 50/50. I recognize that we need to grow our tourism. But I also recognize we need to retain what we have too. My concerns are leaning more on making sure we keep them coming back because without them, we will really have some challenges.”
Count on updates from News13.