Today, Governing reports that the Massachusetts legislature just passed a bill to divert some tax collections from short term vacation rental to assist with affordable housing initiatives.
I had the issue researched a week back and learned from our tax policy legislative expert, from the confines of her first floor state capitol office the following: “You can’t tax these businesses more than other, similar business which take in visitors. You could allocate exiting collections to such a purpose.”
There could be a special account or an existing Housing
Trust Fund within the MT. Board of housing appropriate to deposit such funds. Maybe the funds could assist the application process for our local housing boards…maybe funds collected provide bonus funds to allow for a project to stay above water…
Project 1% take from this segment of the hospitality industry and create a yearly allotment to help the cause.
I’ll continue the research.