{"id":6867,"date":"2025-03-03T16:43:19","date_gmt":"2025-03-03T16:43:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/africanamericanvoice.net\/?p=6867"},"modified":"2025-03-03T16:43:19","modified_gmt":"2025-03-03T16:43:19","slug":"the-fair-swipe-act-is-introduced-in-the-d-c-council","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/africanamericanvoice.net\/?p=6867","title":{"rendered":"The Fair Swipe Act is Introduced in the D.C. Council"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>by\u00a0<span class=\"author vcard\"><a class=\"url fn n\" href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtoninformer.com\/author\/jameswright\/\">James Wright Jr.<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/dccouncil.gov\/council\/councilmember-allen\/\">D.C. Council member Charles Allen\u00a0<\/a>(D-Ward 6) joined\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/shawnjtownsend\/?hl=en\">Shawn Townsend<\/a>, the president and CEO of the\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.ramw.org\/\">Restaurant Association Metropolitan Washington\u00a0<\/a>(RAMW), at a news conference to announce the re-introduction of\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.paymentsjournal.com\/d-c-may-experiment-with-swipe-fee-limits\/\">The Fair Swipe Act<\/a>\u00a0on Feb. 20 at the Dubliner restaurant in Northwest.<\/p>\n<p>The Fair Swipe Act is legislation that would prohibit banks and large credit card companies from including sales tax and gratuities when collecting swipe fees. Annually, swipe fees on sales tax and tips costs drive up the cost for a business by thousands of dollars.<\/p>\n<p>RAMW estimates a full-service restaurant could save around $14,500 per year just by excluding tax and tips from the swipe fee. Currently, whenever a customer uses a credit or debit card to pay for their purchase at a retailer or restaurant, the banks or credit card companies providing the service charge the business an interchange fee (commonly a \u201cswipe fee\u201d)\u00a0to process the charge.<\/p>\n<aside class=\"scaip scaip-1    \">\n<div class=\"newspack_global_ad scaip-1 fixed-height\">\n<div id=\"div-gpt-ad-caf9af3267-0\"><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/aside>\n<p>These fees are a percentage of the total sale, usually 2-4%, and currently include the cost of sales tax and any tip.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThere is no reason banks and large companies like Visa and Mastercard should profit from the required collection of sales tax and tips,\u201d said Allen. \u201cThey don\u2019t help the business remit the sales tax or distribute the tip to the employee. They\u2019re just a middleman driving up the cost of dinner or a coffee.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Allen termed the fight to enact his legislation as\u201d David vs Goliath.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWho would you rather see have a little more money in their bottom line? Your favorite local restaurant or one of a handful of companies like Visa or Mastercard, both of whom earned more than $25 billion last year? That\u2019s an easy call for me,\u201d the legislator said. \u201cI stand with my local businesses and my residents.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The Fair Swipe Act is co-introduced by Councilmembers\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/dccouncil.gov\/council\/at-large-councilmember-christina-henderson\/\">Christina Henderson\u00a0<\/a>(I-At Large),\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/dccouncil.gov\/council\/brianne-nadeau\/\">Brianne Nadeau<\/a>\u00a0(D-Ward 1),\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/dccouncil.gov\/council\/ward-2-councilmember-brooke-pinto\/\">Brooke Pinto\u00a0<\/a>(D-Ward 2), and\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.robertwhiteatlarge.com\/\">Robert White\u00a0<\/a>(D-At Large).<\/p>\n<aside class=\"scaip scaip-2    \">\n<div class=\"newspack_global_ad scaip-2 fixed-height\">\n<div id=\"div-gpt-ad-2bd992b9b0-0\">A new coalition of District small businesses \u2014 The Fair SWIPE (Small businesses Working for Interchange Payment Equity) Coalition \u2014 unites local businesses, community leaders, and consumers working to end excessive credit card processing fees. The coalition consists of independent retailers, restaurant owners, service businesses, hardware stores, small business organizations, and consumer advocates to fight for the passage of the Allen bill.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/aside>\n<p>As president of RAMW and a founding member of the coalition, Townsend expressed his full support for Allen\u2019s legislation.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe restaurant industry is proud to stand with the Fair SWIPE Coalition in this fight,\u201d said Townsend. \u201cOur members serve as cornerstones of their communities, creating thousands of jobs and helping fund essential services through tax collection. Yet they lose money on every dollar of tax they collect because of these excessive fees. It\u2019s time to level the playing field between Main Street and Wall Street.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Source: Published without changes from <a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtoninformer.com\/fair-swipe-act-sales-tax-gratitudes\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Washington Informer Newspaper<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>by\u00a0James Wright Jr. D.C. Council member Charles Allen\u00a0(D-Ward 6) joined\u00a0Shawn Townsend, the president and CEO of the\u00a0Restaurant Association<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":6868,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[32,24],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6867","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business","category-regular-column"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/africanamericanvoice.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6867","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/africanamericanvoice.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/africanamericanvoice.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/africanamericanvoice.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/africanamericanvoice.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6867"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/africanamericanvoice.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6867\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6869,"href":"https:\/\/africanamericanvoice.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6867\/revisions\/6869"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/africanamericanvoice.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/6868"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/africanamericanvoice.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6867"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/africanamericanvoice.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6867"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/africanamericanvoice.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6867"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}