I’ll add my two cent’s on the “Hotel Tax” debate. I travel a lot with my job. I put together a chart showing the hotel taxes I was charged while traveling for my job. Some of the locations published where the fund collected, most didn’t. Today it’s just a part of doing business and Harford County should join the rest of the 22 counties and Baltimore City and benefit from this funding source. It’s a great source of revenue if used properly.
James P. Miller
Havre de Grace City Councilman
You’re absolutely correct; it is just a part of doing buisness. I still can’t understand why every other juristiction in the state has the authority to charge a hotel tax and Harford Co does not.
I’ll add my thoughts in. As someone who travels several times a year for business, Hotel taxes are a part of it. Yes, Harford County should have it. However, it should only be a low tax and be strictly earmarked for tourism. To have it and allow the cities, towns and the county to see it as a cash cow to help their budget is allowing it to be another funding source that is in the general fund. If allowed ,it should also be written in that the localities nad the county must keep their current funding for tourism intact and allow for an increase to cover COLA’s for those stafff members. This will ensure a dedicated staff who will have a budget to encourage more visitors to the area that can help other business’ We all know how the politicians like to siphon funds off to other projects, a well written law would prevent the temtation to do so.
Huntsville, Alabama, is cashing in on the government travel to that area. I would be curious to see whether areas around all military facilities have big hotel taxes.
I disagree with “one more..” above that taxes should only support tourism here. I think that most of the travel involving Harford County is not for recreation and the tax revenue could help in lots of other areas.
I respectfully disagree. If we, as a county can’t live within our means, we don’t need another tax, fee or expense. The budget is big enough and we need to cut spending, not add to it. Please, re-think this bill and stop adding extra expenses to all of us.
Thank you.
BRAC is bringing an unprecedented flow of business traffic to the region. This is the very beginning of a trend that will continue for many years to come. There will be huge benefits to most of us from this influx of economic activity but ALL of us have to deal with the negative effects that it has on Harford County. Taxes like this one take a small part of the load off of our shoulders and put it back onto the business that will profit from the opportunities found here. If the surrounding counties didn’t already have this it still wouldn’t change my feelings. The fact that they do makes it a no-brainer. Trying to allocate the funds generated to specific spending areas is irrelevant, and tantamount to taking monies out of one pocket and putting it into another. Increased hotel traffic strains areas such as infrastructure, police, fire & ems (among others).
Hotels pay property taxes. Politicians need to get their act straight and not put the pressure on hotels to make up for their misguided decisions.
Also to add, ask any hotelier in the county how hard it is to make payroll or other expenses that keep our local residents employed in this time of economic crisis. Increasing the total cost of lodging will decrease travel to our area if the funds purely do not go back to promoting tourism in the county. If you don’t understand this concept, please enroll in ECON 101 at your local community college.
Are you serious? Get real and get a life! Gut check – the areas around Aberdeen and Edgewood are not now and never will be tourist destinations. People come here for business and expect to pay the taxes. The hotel owner will not lose one red cent due to this as it is a pass through to the transient guest. The only way the real estate tax could cover the actual cost of services would be to have a distinct and different rate that would be about double that of everyone else.
Dave:
Have to totally agree! The hotels will not loose anything. The workers will still have to come here. The County benefits and has additional funds to support the increase in visitors. This is a no brainer people.
Kim
Maybe it’s just me, but I really don’t see very many people coming to Harford County as a tourist destination. Sure, there are some nice places to check out in the county and it’s not far from Baltimore, but I certainly wouldn’t plan any vacation involving a stop in Harford County regardless of what the hotel taxes are. Most of the people coming to the county and staying in hotels are either here on business or are on a long trip and are simply stopping here to catch a good night’s sleep before continuing their trip.
Of course, maybe I’m just not seeing it because I live here (though I haven’t been living here all that many years), but what attractions are there in Harford County that are going to bring in any significant number of tourists? To be honest, prior to moving here the only thing in the county I could name was APG (and even that I couldn’t tell you was in Harford County, just that it was less than an hour north of Baltimore.)
Dave, how many hotels do you operate? I’d like to know how you base your numbers that “no one comes here but military/business”. A great deal of business comes from transient (I-95) and sports group travel. There is no market that I know of in the US that is 100% business/government. You will certainly see a reduction in transient business due to higher costs. When price (P) increases there is a decrease in demand (Q). Hotel operators in the county are not making as much money as you think as the recent hotels that have opened are over-leveraged and coupled with tight credit markets long-term sustenance is unlikely at these rates. I operate multiple properties here since ’97.
Just be honest and say that you want to gauge people because you can.
OK I’ll be honest. I want to “gauge” people. I’d gauge them on their work ethic, their honesty, their ability to assist their fellow man.
What the hell has that got to do with a hotel tax? Of course I don’t operate a hotel. I stay in a fair amount of them for one reason or another, and always pay a hotel tax. Phoenix, AZ has at least five distinct taxes for municipal, state, stadium authority, airport, sports authority, etc. For some reason people fill those hotels almost every night. Oh yeah, it’s a real tourist destination! People use the Harford County hotels and should be taxed the same as anywhere else. I don’t care if it’s Mr. local business owner using it for a nooner, he should be taxed as well. What the hell we could enen gauge him too!
^^I feel like Rosanna Rosanna Danna: I think the word is gouge as in overcharge.
Hotels don’t pay the tax, the people who rent the room do. Like EVERY OTHER COUNTY in the State. Allowing a hotel tax in Harford will NOT stop people from renting hotel rooms in Harford County. To think so is just stupid.
What I find humorous is that none of you has any real evidence to support your claim that “no one will stop coming if this tax is in place”. Everyone here has paid the hotel tax when they travel, however, it was on someone else’s dime. No one has stated that they have no problem paying these taxes when they travel when it comes out of their pocket. This is my views on the tax from a hotelier perspective. Take it as you will this is my last post on this subject.
Once again, if you travel from Maine to Florida ever year, like many seniors do, will you stop in Aberdeen if your overall cost of lodging has increased $15? You may elect to stay in another town which may or may not have a tax yet still has an overall lower effective cost of lodging.
Such a tax puts a downward pressure on our pricing to absorb the effect of the price increase due to the tax. This hurts the hotel and the bottom line.
A 2% Addition to Room Taxes Would Cost the Nation 327,000 Jobs, $10,000 Million in Wages, $33,000 Million in Sales while Gaining Net Revenue only about One-Half of the Tax Increase
Econometric analysis reveals that on average a 2.0% increase in the combined tax on hotel and motel rooms will cause a reduction in room sales and associated visitor spending per year unless countered by increased promotional spending. This will spill over into every sector of the economy.
The negative impact of increased room taxes can be mitigated, and may even be beneficial, if taxes are used for travel promotion. A number of markets designate a portion of the room tax to support convention and visitor bureaus, travel advertising and other activities aimed at increasing travel and tourism. Other earmarked uses of room taxes do not benefit tourism and act as a travel deterrent by increasing a guest’s cost without attracting more guests.
Source: American Hotel & Lodging Association, 2008
P.S. Metro Phoenix, AZ has experienced a -7.7% drop in revenue across its hotels. http://www.azot.gov/section.aspx?sid=35
I have been looking for this information for weeks! I knew it was out there. Maybe Riley will see the light of day. You should send him this in an email.
What I find humorous is that you refuse to see the majority of people lodging in Aberdeeen/Edgewood are here for business. Plain and simple. If you want to protect Ripken Stadium then have a hotel tax free week when they are doing that tournament. Simple solution.
I don’t want to protect anyone. It’s not about protection. That’s the problem with you liberals.
You want to make laws and then carve out niches to “protect” people.
Another way to look at this is to cut a strip of flesh from everyone’s back, but don’t take it from special people. The only thing people need protection from is crazy legislation that taxes and regulates them out of their homes and businesses.
Like tax increases that have “carve outs” for special states like Nebraska. Doing some quick research- one hotel in Edgewood pays $65,000 annually in property taxes and employs 90 people where they pay payroll taxes and income taxes. Proof here: http://tinyurl.com/ykkas2c
That is not information! That is a data set created by the hotel lobby to confuse the elected officials. The really dumb ones buy it. I challenged the entire thing when I met with Senator Jacobs. I can create a set of numbers that show the exact opposite and put them out under the name of some law firm that sits on I street in DC and prove a case just as well. The data are invalid and just some lobbyist BS.
This information is from the Hotel & Lodging Industry. What do you expect?????
Well Please Tell Me, do you expect that hotels are posting their proprietary sales figures online for their competitors to review? Disputing a source is one thing, but pretending that there are bounds of information publicly available to review is a little disingenuous.
Bottom line: people deal in margins when they buy things. Why else would Walmart be so popular? Why else would the 5cent bag tax be so unpopular in Washington? Why else would people drive two miles more to get gas 2 cents cheaper?
If we have made do without a tax before then why would on earth would we push a tax in a recession? To test out whether or not it will cost jobs? Really?
Instead of raising taxes why aren’t we talking about places to cut taxes? Corporate income (small business) tax? Personal income tax? Sales tax? That’s how we create jobs. That’s how we can bolster our economy.
But no, we’re wasting away talking about some way to raise a tax. Have that discussion on a sunny day.
Can someone please tell me why Harford County is the only county in Maryland that doesn’t have a hotel room tax for travelers?
I think you need to address that question to the one person who has blocked this legislation from moving forward in the past.
Please explain why such a tax is needed, do these Hotels cause for an extra amount of service such as trash removal, road maintenance, or additional calls of service for the Police Department. NO!
This is just anther source of tax revenue that the bureaucrats will only use for taking care of themselves with pay raises and better retirement and health care packages then us poor working slobs.
Tax Man, are you saying that the hotel patrons (travelers) don’t use our roads or our water systems?
Again, why do you answer my question with another question? Get real.
Can someone please tell me why Harford County is the only county in Maryland that doesn’t have a hotel room tax for travelers?
Who has blocked the legislation?
One of the people who want the Harford County citizen to pay more taxes and not out of town users of our resources is Susan McComas –District 35 B.
Basically wished to state I am lucky that i happened on the website.