Forsyth County Tax Collector (Tax Administration)

Forsyth County Beverage License (county malt beverage and wine retail license)

This is a real Forsyth County business license, and it is a different instrument from an ABC permit. G.S. 105-113.78 provides that a person holding a retail malt beverage or wine ABC permit for an establishment located in a county shall obtain from the county a county license for that activity, and that the annual tax for each license is as stated — on-premises malt beverage $25.00, off-premises malt beverage $5.00, on-premises unfortified or fortified wine $25.00, off-premises unfortified or fortified wine $25.00. The Forsyth County Tax Collector publishes its own Beverage License Application on the Tax Administration forms page, headed 'Forsyth County Tax Collector' over the county seal reading 'FORSYTH COUNTY ★ NORTH CAROLINA ★ 1849', and it prints those same four amounts, so the county figure and the statutory figure agree exactly; the statute fixes the tax rather than capping it. Session Laws 2014-3, s. 12.3(b) repealed G.S. 153A-152, the county privilege license tax statute, effective July 1, 2015, and s. 12.3(a) repealed the city equivalent at G.S. 160A-211, but Article 2C of Chapter 105 was untouched, which is why this license survives. The order of steps matters, and the statute sets it: G.S. 105-113.70(a) states that no local license may issue until the applicant has received the applicable ABC permit from the Commission, and that no county license may issue for an establishment located in a city in that county until the applicant has received the city's license for that activity — the county's form marks the State ABC Permit number for beer, fortified wine and unfortified wine as required. For premises inside Winston-Salem the city step comes first, and the City's own Business License page lists 'Beer and Wine Sales' among the business types that need a city privilege license at Beer off Premise $5, Beer on Premise $15, Wine off Premise $10 and Wine on Premise $15; those are city charges, not county ones. Forsyth is not among the counties listed in G.S. 105-113.71(b) whose governing bodies may decline to issue on-premises unfortified wine licenses, and G.S. 105-113.71(c) allows only the Town of Cary to decline to require the local license, though a license may still be refused case by case under (a) after a hearing. Whether a particular part of the county is wet or dry is a separate local-option question that this license does not turn on, and no claim about it is made here. Contact: Forsyth County Tax Collector, PO Box 82, Winston-Salem, NC 27102-0082, (336) 703-2300.