Tax the fellow taking a vacancy?
That was one of the suggestions made by a resident attending a municipal meeting in Monroeville suggested, that the municipality levy a 1 percent hotel tax. The resident may have been aware that there is a 7 percent hotel tax that falls on all hotel/motel stays in Allegheny County and that the money is used to promote tourism, pay off debt of the Lawrence Convention Center, and subsidize tourism activities in Monroeville; if not, officials at the meeting made mention of it. Piggybacking a 1 percent tax on top of the County’s tax would drive the rate in Monroeville nearly as high as Philadelphia.
The state courts struck down a municipal hotel tax because of state preemption and subsequent decades have seen the permission to levy an additional tax fall to counties, and the use is tied to tourism and convention type activities, not for general government purposes. Hotel operators act as the collection agent for the tax.
It should be noted that the suggestion was made because there is talk of another real estate tax increase in the municipality, one that had avoided a tax increase for a very long time only to ask for court permission to go above the 5 percent limitation on tax increases in a reassessment year.
