Orange County is looking to pick up tax revenues it’s been missing out on.
Laurie Paolicelli, executive director at the Chapel Hill-Orange County Visitors Bureau, said in an email that online travel companies haven't had to pay occupancy tax in Orange County.
“We don’t anticipate that it will be significant, but we will see an increase which will allow us to increase our travel marketing programs,” Paolicelli said.
Carrboro Town Manager David Andrews said taxes would be assessed on the sales price paid by the consumer. The current issue is that online travel companies pay taxes only on the amount that is paid to the hotel. The resolution proposal intends to tax the differential between what these companies charge consumers and what is given back to the hotel.
Alderman Sammy Slade said he was supportive of the proposal but was unsure of the possible outcomes.
“It’s probably not significant, the number of back taxes that are in question here, but we do benefit from services the county provides and so I’d be curious to learn from the county what losses they’re estimated that are incurred by going into the settlement,” Slade said.
Andrews said the resolution would give the county collectional authority of the taxes that it could have been collecting and that it is notable to consider what the losses would have been.
Patty Griffin, spokeswoman for the Visitors Bureau, said she was advised by the county attorney that this was an issue initiated by the online travel companies and requires them to collect and remit the occupancy taxes going forward.
“Obviously, that means an increase in online occupancy taxes collected for the county,” Griffin said.
Also proposed at the meeting was a call for a public hearing regarding the building of a new Arts and Innovation Center. Kidzu Children's Museum, Carolina Performing Arts and The ArtsCenter partnered to head up plans for the new center.
Noel James, interim executive director at The ArtsCenter, said the board of directors of The ArtsCenter has been planning the new facility for three years.
“The reason they’ve been working on this project is that they want to make sure that we have a facility that would meet our educational needs as well as our performance demands,” James said.
The ArtsCenter hosted more than 93,000 people in its theater space in 2013, James said.
“It’s in dire need of major improvement," James said. "And so to have this collaboration with two of the partners is making it more attractive, not only in terms of out programming, but in terms of building needs."
The new Arts and Innovation Center would be located in the parking lot across from Armadillo Grill in Carrboro, James said.
The Board of Aldermen in Carrboro approved the public hearing for Jan. 20 at 7:30 p.m., but Alderwoman Jacqueline Gist said there could be challenges when it comes to notifying the public.
The main forms of communication to Carrboro residents have been through homeowners associations and emails, and some residents do not belong to these associations or receive the listserv emails.
Gist said the meeting would be strictly Carrboro resident-focused.
“We are hoping that when we have the public hearing that the meeting won’t be stacked with non-Carrboro residents and businesses,” Gist said. “We intend to ask for addresses, because that’s who is potentially going to be paying for it.”
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