Across these 2026 Virginia bills, two clear themes emerge: expanding government collection mechanisms and increasing the financial/administrative friction that residents and small businesses feel in day-to-day life. HB900 and HB978 are the most direct hits to local retail shipping/packaging stores because they move Virginia toward taxing services, explicitly including delivery/shipping services and wrapping/packing, which would raise customer checkout totals and create new compliance burdens (POS changes, exemption handling, staff training, and customer disputes). SB66 adds another pathway for higher consumer costs by letting any county or city adopt, via referendum, an additional local sales and use tax of up to 1% dedicated to public school capital projects—creating a patchwork of rates and putting additional pressure on discretionary spending, even if the goal is popular.
The other bills create indirect but real impacts through operating costs and “paperwork drag.” HB994 expands/updates rules for speed-camera enforcement in specified zones (school/work zones, certain high-risk areas, and locally created “safety red zones”), which can affect customer access patterns, delivery routing, and small-business admin time when vehicles/drivers are involved, even though it’s not a tax bill. HB188 raises the top individual income tax rate on very high incomes (which can still affect pass-through small business owners and investment decisions), HB378 imposes a new net investment income tax that can hit owners when they sell a business or invest, HB557 creates a new local property-tax classification for certain electric landscaping equipment (raising costs for some business customers), and HB954 allows localities to round certain bills to nickels if pennies go away (small amounts, but more patchwork and reconciliation hassle). Overall, the combined effect is higher effective costs, more complexity, and less predictability for small local businesses and the customers they serve.
