Segment 3: Online Transient Room Taxes Pt 3
What are the proposed solutions for online travel companies in paying taxes to the state of Utah?
Option 1: The American Legislative exchange counsel, which would memorialize in state statue the expedia model where the amount of money received by the hotel is the amount that would be taxed by the state.
Option 2: The Multi-state tax commission has a different model that is based on what the customer pays for the room, not what the hotel receives through an intermediary. Under their model, if a customer paid $100 to the hotel intermediary the online travel company then the entire $15 would be due the state of Utah, a portion of that would be paid by the hotel, a portion would be paid by the online travel company. Option 3: There's another proposal that would allow the hotel intermediaries to maintain their service fee as tax exempt but it would require them to disclose to the customer at the time of the booking what the cost of the hotel room was, what the service fees were and how much the customer is paying in tax.
