Fair-Minded Fix Needed for Ulster Hotel Tax

On Thursday, the Ulster County Legislature will consider a technical correction to the recently passed ‘bed tax’ increase that is increasing from 2 to 4%.  This technical correction will fix inaccurate assessments of occupancy revenue at certain all-inclusive resorts in Ulster that employ hundreds of local employees, generate critical local revenue, and face rapidly rising regional competition.  
 
The ‘bed tax’ is a tax collected by local hotels and resorts from guests for their ‘room occupancy'.  But for all-inclusive resorts, especially larger ones, where meals, entertainments and services are included in a single fee, due to outdated actuarial tables, 40% of ALL room rates are taxed.  This includes all the amenities such as food, horseback riding, guest lectures, guided tours, spa, special events, etc.  Ulster County’s all-inclusive resorts have opened their books and demonstrated that only 20% of room rates are attributable to “occupancy”.
 
For the sake of fairness and accuracy, Ulster Strong calls on the County Legislature to pass the proposed bi-partisan technical correction to the local bed tax law so that our homegrown local resorts, that remain locally-owned and operated, can remain competitive to the big resorts of the Poconos, Adirondacks, or elsewhere, and continue to employ so many in our community.  We encourage fair-minded citizens to contact their county legislators and encourage them to support this obvious and fair adjustment to the county’s bed tax. https://legislature.ulstercountyny.gov/legislature/legislative-members