The Issaquah Chamber of Commerce is urging local business owners to educate themselves on the city’s business and occupation tax in light of an increase proposed by the mayor.

The proposal came as part of Mayor Fred Butler’s presentation of his 2015 budget to the City Council last week.

Manufacture, wholesale and retail businesses are currently taxed at a rate of 0.08 percent of gross income, while the rate for all other businesses is 0.1 percent. Under the mayor’s proposal, the manufacture, wholesale and retail rate would nearly double to 0.15 percent, while the rate for all other businesses would see a more modest increase to 0.12 percent. Those new rates, if approved by the council, would take effect April 1.

The manufacture/wholesale/retail rate would increase further in 2016, with 0.15 percent become 0.2 percent.

Though the rates would increase, Butler’s proposal also would increase the exemption floor on the tax. Businesses taking in less than $100,000 in gross income would be exempt from the B&O Tax, a fivefold increase from the current $20,000 exemption. According to an Oct. 12 blog post by chamber CEO Matthew Bott, the new figure would exempt 30 percent of Issaquah businesses from paying the tax.

Taken altogether, the alterations would increase budgeted revenue from B&O to $3.75 million in 2015, according to staff projections. The city budgeted for $2.75 million in revenue in 2014, and estimates it will collect a little more than $2.65 million.

Bott published the chamber’s position on the tax proposals to the organization’s blog Oct. 12. The entry did not directly take a position on the B&O Tax, instead urging a balanced and sustainable budget that supported items like infrastructure, transportation, business competition and signage.

However, the entry did note that proposed tax increases should be “a last resort, after careful analysis of expense drivers and levels of service.” Bott wrote that any revenue from tax increases should support the aforementioned fundamentals.

The Chamber hosted a business forum on the tax Wednesday, at Tibbetts Creek Manor.

Most business owners present said they might be more comfortable supporting the increases if they better understood what services the revenue would fund.

“We think a 250 percent increase in the rate, without getting rid of fluff, would be preemptive and unproductive,” Karen Dawson of Cedar Grove Composting said.

Norma Stephens, the owner of Curves of Issaquah, said she would become an exempt business under the proposal. But what if her business grew?

“Praise God,” she said. “I’ll pay it. I don’t mind paying my taxes. I am proud to live in this country and I want to pay my fair share. What I don’t want is to pay for stuff that isn’t essential.”

The city will host an open house on the B&O Tax Oct. 27 in the City Hall Eagle Room.