Tillamook County residents will shortly be voting on an increase in the Transient Lodging Tax (TLT). This is paid by visitors who spend the night and is being raised at the same time the economy is slowing and hotels are already watching guests cancel their advance reservations.
Guests will only pay so much for a room. Hotels will either have to pay the 40% tax increase themselves, which they cannot afford, or raise their room rates to pass it along. Many overnighters – already stressed by the economy – will refuse to pay the higher rates and switch into day trippers to avoid paying any taxes at all.
This will have several impacts:
- Tourist demand will fall for in-restaurant and catered meals, evening entertainment, event facilitation, and other business in our community. Some hotels and meeting venues will fail.
- Demands on our community services will increase since day visitors use more than overnighters.
- Tourism tax revenue collected by cities and the County will fall with less overnight guests, making it even harder to fund the increased need for services.
The bottom line is that a higher tax rate will reduce the taxes collected while also destroying our jobs and punishing our local business owners.
The answer is not to strangle our multi-day visitors. Rather, the County should start by streamlining its own operating costs the way we hoteliers have already done. Then it should find creative ways to broaden the tax base so day visitors carry more of the load.
The proposed Ordinance #74 Amendment #3 Section 12.c/d shows how misleading is this tax increase. It first takes away all the County General Fund money for the Sheriff’s office and then replaces it with money from the TLT tax increase. This allows the County to link the tax increase to law enforcement and EMS services in a completely artificial way. The reality is this is a tax increase meant to boost the General Fund which can be spent in any way the County desires. There is no accountability.
Everything about the proposed TLT increase is bad public policy and we urge the voters to reject it.
