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Franklin County bed tax revenue climbs

MALONE – Franklin County bed tax revenue spiked over the summer, and it will likely grow even more starting Saturday when Airbnb begins collecting the tax in the county.

County Treasurer Bryon Varin said Thursday that the county has seen $235,460 in revenue from the 5 percent occupancy tax since it was instituted on Nov. 1 of last year. That includes $142,000 over the summer months.

That’s a big jump from mid May, when Varin reported that only $40,000 had been collected and less than half of the lodging businesses that were supposed to collect the tax were doing so.

“Now we have about 60 percent of the establishments we targeted, and this last quarter was a very good quarter for us,” Varin said. “If we had everything in place at the commencement of the year, we would have been there.”

County officials had projected $350,000 in revenue from the tax in its first year, but when payments lagged, Varin dropped the revenue forecast to $150,000.

The bed tax applies to overnight stays in hotels, motels, bed-and-breakfasts, tourist homes, inns, lake cottages, personal residences and vacation rentals or similar accommodations. So far, 65 certificates have been issued.

“And there are some establishments that are going to remit to us at the end of their season, campgrounds and so on,” Varin said. “And there are some folks that only operate for a few months during the summer season, and they’re going to remit to us at the end of the season, so we’ll see some more inching up of the numbers.”

The county keeps 10 percent of the revenue from the bed tax while the rest goes to the Lake Placid-based Regional Office of Sustainable Tourism. ROOST CEO James McKenna learned of the increase in bed tax collections as he was updating legislators Thursday on his organization’s marketing efforts in the county: in Malone, Saranac Lake and Tupper Lake.

“That’s great,” he said. “Now that puts us in a position to really plan for next year.”

In June, the county approved a contract with Airbnb that requires the company to collect the surcharge, starting Oct. 1, from county property owners who rent their homes out using the online, peer-to-peer service.

McKenna said he recently received a report from Airbnb that said the company has 110 “active hosts” in Franklin County as of July 1. The total payout to people who rented their properties on Airbnb from July 1, 2015, to July 1, 2016, was $419,000, with an average nightly price of $169.

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