Some Sault motels dawdle on paying lodging tax
Hard on the heels of last week’s city council choice to crack down on shorter-time period-rental owners who are not collecting the four per cent municipal accommodation tax, we learned this 7 days that some significantly larger hotels also aren’t having to pay their truthful share.
“We’ve got a medium-sized resort that has not described, I think, given that May well,” Travis Anderson, the city’s director of tourism and community enhancement, advised a assembly of the Tourism Sault Ste. Marie board.
Just one bigger hotelier is also overdue on assembly its obligations, Anderson claimed.
The resorts were not identified and Anderson did not say how very long the big hotel has been in arrears.
Sault Ste. Marie imposes a 4 per cent municipal lodging tax (MAT) on all accommodations much less than 30 consecutive days, such as lodges, motels, motor accommodations, lodges, inns, resorts, bed and breakfasts or any other spot an accommodation is furnished.
City officials believe that house owners who rent out all or element of their qualities to small-phrase visitors are largely noncompliant with their licensing and tax obligations.
Of 158 energetic shorter-time period rental listings in the town final thirty day period, only 16 have been certified.
The city, they say, gained just $5,622 of the $47,000 in MAT taxes it ought to have received from January to July if all current listed short-term houses ended up accredited.
The MAT tax generates funding for tourism promotion and development within the town.
Previous week, city councillors agreed to crack down on rogue operators:
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- small-phrase rental hosts must include their municipal licence or licence range all advertising, to allow renters and enforcement personnel to effortlessly detect licensed qualities
- the 3-12 months $50 licensing rate will rise to $500 successful Jan. 1, 2024. Creating and fireplace inspection expenses will be on best of that
- the metropolis will fork out $15,000 to a third-bash service to get civic addresses for quick-expression renters, allowing them to start a “proactive” enforcement blitz in 2024
- town employees will push during forthcoming finances deliberations for two new constructing inspectors to assistance in the crackdown




More than all, the city is accomplishing “quite properly” at MAT collections, Anderson informed this week’s Tourism Sault Ste. Marie board conference.
“The occupancy rates have been down about five for every cent in July and about 4 for each cent in August,” Anderson explained.
The decrease is part of a province-huge trend, board members have been instructed.