Liquor Tax Increase Coming Up

I'm sure most Marylanders are aware that the cost of drinking alcohol will go up by 3%, beginning July 1, when the additional tax on liquor is added to the bill.  Here is the information about the tax from the Comptroller's web site.  The 3% will add about 15 to 20 cents to your average glass of wine, beer or cocktail at Brooks Tavern - instead of paying $6.36 for that glass of Grayson Chardonnay or vodka on the rocks, it will be $6.54.  If I am doing my math right - and that is always questionable - a couple of these a week would set the average drinker back an additional $25 or $30 a year.  Looked at that way, the additional sales tax doesn't seem like it would hurt the normal alcohol imbibing pocket book that hard.  But there's an added cost to the business that collects the mandated tax - and it's mandated that we follow certain protocol, which is where my problem lies - we have to itemize the tax on alcohol on a separate line on the check.  It's easy enough for me to go to Digital Dining's set up page on my soft ware and change the tax on alcohol from 6% to 9%.  I've already tried that, and made it work on a template.  The part about itemizing it separately on the check is where I've broken down.  

Not to worry though.  I got a nice letter from Digital Dining saying that for the mere sum of $125, they will push the buttons to make this happen.  Multiply that by X number of DD customers who don't have a thousand dollar a year service plan, and that's a nice chunk of change. 

Wonder if restaurant software companies had anything to do with helping push this new tax through?  I'm sure they weren't against it...