Accountant to look at hotel-motel books

The tax brings in about $600,000 a year for marketing Mahoning County.
By BOB JACKSON
VINDICATOR COURTHOUSE REPORTER
YOUNGSTOWN -- Motels and hotels in Mahoning County will get a visitor soon, but not one who'll be booking a room.
It will be an accountant, calling to look at their books.
County commissioners, at the request of the Youngstown/Mahoning County Convention and Visitors Bureau, have hired an accounting firm to make sure all the inns are paying out all the bed tax they should.
"We want to make sure that everybody who is supposed to pay the tax is paying it. That's all," said Atty. Lawrence Richards, visitor's bureau chairman.
Richards said the bureau has no information indicating that there are businesses who aren't paying what they should.
"I think a lot of counties do this periodically, just to be sure," he said. "It's not that we have an inkling that there's someone who isn't paying."
Without an audit, there is no way to determine whether businesses are paying as they should.
Basis for tax
Ohio law permits local governments to levy a tax on lodging furnished to transient guests by hotels and motels within their jurisdiction. The county can impose a tax of up to 3 percent, and does so. The municipality or township in which the facility is located can impose up to an additional 3 percent.
There are some exemptions under the law, such as for federal government employees who are traveling on government business, Richards said. The audit would ensure that those exemptions are being observed.
Adrian Biviano, Trumbull County chief deputy auditor, said Trumbull levies a 2.5 percent tax and has routinely audited hotels and motels. The last one was for a three-year period ending in 1999 and turned up about $30,000 in delinquencies. With penalties added, the total was about $45,500.
Revenue from Mahoning's countywide tax goes toward funding the convention and visitors bureau, which is paying for the audit. Richards said the cost should be between $300 and $600 per hotel or motel.
He said the bureau gets about $600,000 a year in bed tax revenue and uses it for marketing the area as a tourist stop.
There are several bus tour trips to the county to visit sites like Mill Creek Park, the Butler Museum of American Art and a petting zoo in Berlin Township.
There is also a "Saints and Sinners" tour, in which visitors tour historical churches by day, and at night are taken to Mountaineer Park, a racetrack and gaming resort in Newell, W.Va.
Bringing tourists here boosts businesses other than hotels and motels, Richards said.
"Restaurants certainly benefit because when people come here to sleep, they've got to eat," he said.
Convenient location
The area's location as a midpoint between Cleveland and Pittsburgh is also touted by the bureau. Lodging here is substantially cheaper than in those cities, so tourists are encouraged to stay here during evenings after visiting the cities.
"Our location is something we really try to market," Richards said. He said the bureau also pushes the county as a stop for bus trips and travelers between New York City and Chicago.
Even though the visitors bureau is paying for the audit, it won't get to see the results, Richards said. For business reasons, the results will be confidential.
The amount of bed tax paid by a particular business could be used to determine the overall amount of business it does in a year. If that were made public, it could be obtained and used by competitors, Richards said.
If the audit reveals that a particular business is not paying the tax, or isn't paying as much as it should, the matter will probably be handed over to the county prosecutor's office for civil action to collect what's owed.
"Then again, they could come back and tell us that they didn't find a dime, that everyone is doing what they're supposed to do," Richards said. "That would make us very happy."
There are 21 hotels and motels in the county, according to bureau executive director Tom Lyden. New ones are scheduled to open in the spring in Austintown and North Lima.
About 45 percent of those facilities are in the Austintown area, and another 45 percent are in Boardman, in the South Avenue-U.S. Route 224 area, Richards said.
bjackson@vindy.com