Michigan Residents Could Face Service Tax on Lawn Care

The typical sights and sounds of fall are about to become a little more expensive.

Lawn care is on the list of services in Michigan poised to get a six-percent sales tax added to them.

Local landscape contractors say that move will be the demise of their profession.

"It's going to have a serious, negative impact on our business," says Holt landscaper Dave Thurston, who owns Royal Lawn and Landscaping.

Thurston was among the masses of landscapers at the Capitol Thursday, voicing their opposition to the tax.

They call the service tax arbitrary because it only applies to very specific services. Oakland County Executive L. Brooks Patterson explains: "If I cut your hair, no tax. If I dye your hair, tax."

They also say customers won't be able to afford the added costs and will simply stop using the services.

"It'll mean less services and employees losing their jobs because we don't have work to offer them," Thurston says.

"It will kill jobs, it will force people to leave," Patterson says at Thursday's "Ax the Tax" rally. "I think we should repeal the tax. Period. And send it back to the drawing board to get it right."

Landscapers and other small business owners voices have been heard. Lawmakers say they're open to considering alternatives to the service tax.

House democratic spokesman Greg Bird says his party and Speaker Andy Dillon are open to hearing all ideas. They say they're staying in close touch with small business owners in the state to get a good feel for the issue, but that if the tax is to be repealed, it must be replaced with a revenue-neutral, bi-partisan idea.

"We're getting a feel for what's at stake," Bird says.

And what's at stake, landscape contractors say, is much more than revenue for the state-- it's their hard-earned green, too.