State Revises Retail & Restaurant Protocols – Effective Monday May 10th
This afternoon, the Baker Administration posted revised sector-specific guidance for the retail and restaurant industries in the Commonwealth. The changes are to take effect on Monday, May 10, 2021. The updated sector-specific protocols and best practices can be found here:
RAM has been actively lobbying the Administration to revisit the announced timeline for a full reopening, advocating that the state fully reopen by Memorial Day. In the immediate term, we had also raised a number of issues with the protocols, citing restrictions that should be relaxed sooner. Some of those concerns have been addressed with this update, including, but not limited to, the following changes in the retail protocols:
- the elimination of mandated senior hours for pharmacies and grocery stores
- the elimination of the requirement to quarantine/steam clean clothing tried on by a customer
- the elimination of required cleaning logs, deference to CDC guidance
ALL members are encouraged to closely review the new protocols.
MA Department of Revenue Updates Timeline for Relief of Certain Business Taxes
The MA Department of Revenue (DOR) this week announced updates to administrative tax relief which has been provided to certain businesses in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. The updates include resuming monthly return filing and payment remittance as scheduled starting June 30, 2021 for vendors and operators, only on a going forward basis, beginning with returns and payments attributable to May tax collections.
The DOR also announced a further extension of the deferral of regular sales tax, meals tax, and room occupancy taxes for certain small businesses. More information is available here.
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