CHAPTER 644

An Act to amend and reenact § 58-820 of the Code of Virginia, as
amended, relating to retail merchants, so as to classify caterers as
retail merchants.

[S 328}

Approved April 7, 1954
Be it enacted by the General Assembly of Virginia:

1. That § 58-320 of the Code of Virginia, as amended, be amended and
reenacted as follows:

§ 58-320. Definitions.—All goods, wares and merchandise manufac-
tured by any retail merchant and sold in this State, as merchandise, shall
be considered as sales within the meaning of this article. But this article
shall not be construed as applying to manufacturers taxed on capital by
this State, who sell at the place of manufacture goods, wares and merchan-
dise manufactured by them.

The term “retail merchant”, as used in this article, means every
merchant who sells at retail only and not for resale.

Any person who shall cook, or otherwise furnish for compensation,
diet or refreshments of any kind, for casual visitors at his house, for
consumption therein, and who does not furnish lodging, and who is not
the keeper of a hotel or lodging house, is classified as a retail merchant
for the purposes of this chapter, and shall be licensable as such. Any
person who shall sell soft drinks from a soda fountain is also classified as
a retail merchant and shall be licensable as such. Moreover, a caterer is
classified as a retail merchant, licensable as such, and for the purpose of
measuring his license tax, his gross receipts shall be regarded as sales.
The capital of the business classified as that of a retail merchant by this
paragraph shall, for tax purposes, take the same status as other merchants’
capital, and the definition thereof shall be the same, notwithstanding any
other provision of law to the contrary. Tangible personal property not
constituting a part of merchants’ capital, that is to say, tangible personal
property not offered for sale as merchandise, or, in the case of the business
classified by this paragraph as that of a retail merchant, tangible personal
property not intended for sale in the same or in a different form in the
ordinary and regular conduct of the business, shall be reported as tangible
personal property and assessed as such for local taxation. *

This section, as hereby amended, shall apply to the license year be-
ginning January first, nineteen hundred and fifty-five and to every license
year thereafter until otherwise provided by law.