Colorado — In the latest effort to improve working and living conditions in vacation towns, a new bill will permit Colorado counties to seek to increase lodging taxes.
Robert Tann from Summit Daily reports that the lawmakers in Colorado’s legislature have approved a bill that will allow counties to ask voters to increase lodging taxes. It now heads to Governor Jared Polis’ office for a potential signature.
Currently, counties can’t have a lodging tax rate above 2%, and towns can’t have it be above 6%. This bill will allow counties to ask voters whether to approve a lodging tax rate of up to 6%. For some counties, this could lead to a lodging tax rate increase by 4% (from 2% to 6%). If approved, the bill will allow counties more flexibility in terms of what the revenue can be used for, which includes funding childcare services, worker housing, emergency services, and other community projects.
Colorado State Senator Dylan Roberts (D-Frisco) said the following about the benefits of the bill:
“I hope that it helps communities double-down on things that have already been working, whether it’s child care provider stipends in Eagle County or more affordable housing development in several Western Slope counties.”
This didn’t face the fiercest pushback from opponents, including short-term rental owners, but they tried to limit counties’ maximum lodging tax rate to 5%.
Julie Koster, the executive director of the Colorado Lodging and Resort Alliance, supports having these taxes go towards community causes, but was concerned about the impacts these costs could have on tourists.
“4% does not sound like a massive number, but (visitors are) not seeing all of the other excise taxes, municipal district taxes that are compounded with this. We are concerned about the traveller who maybe is new to this community, who doesn’t understand the justification for these increased fees.”
More bills are likely to come in the years ahead that could affect operators of short-term rentals. Two bills that were advocated for by local advocacy groups this year, but not introduced into the legislature, included a vacancy tax on short-term rentals and adding a tax on the recreation industry, which would include ski resorts.
Image Credits: Ethan Walsweer, Fr. Daniel Ciucci
