Resort tax collections in Manatee County for July climbed 19.5 percent from collections in July 2010, a gain of $102,703, a press release from Manatee County Tax Collector Ken Burton said.
Collections in July 2010 were $527,249, while July this year saw collections reach $629,952, according to the tax collector’s website.
Burton said the July increase marked the sixth straight month that resort tax collections, also known as the “bed tax,” have increased from last year.
But rather than more visitors coming to the area, he credited a large share of the increase to Sue Sinquefield, Kris Reeves and Tanya Ranney in the resort tax collections department.
Even in a tough economy, the work of investigators “has exceeded our projections,” Burton said.
Investigators have been educating accommodation owners and agents about paying the 5 percent monthly resort tax on all accommodations rented for less than 6 months. Burton noted the team has been conducting audits of rental properties with considerable success at “generating revenue for our community.”
Sinquefield said investigators routinely check advertisements for rental properties against tax and property appraiser’s records. The investigators also visit rental properties and speak to the occupant or owner.
Accommodation owners are not the only ones who should be aware of investigator efforts. Sinquefield said if investigators find a suspicious homestead exemption while researching resort tax records, they pass that information to the Manatee County Property Appraiser’s Office for follow-up.
The system also works in reverse, she said, with the PAO advising resort tax investigators if it finds a suspicious property while verifying a homestead claim.
Michele Schulz of the resort tax staff said the department has been “targeting the bed or tourist tax evaders for several years,” and has introduced a hotline for anonymous tipsters to report rentals “suspected to be in noncompliance with paying the tax.”
When investigators discover a property owner that was required to pay the bed tax but didn’t, the owner is given several options to pay the tax, including a payment plan.
July resort tax collection figures by municipality were not yet available online due to a computer glitch last week, but records show Anna Maria Island and Longboat Key accounted for 62.1 percent of June’s bed tax collections