Lolo Resort Tax
After much public comment, staff decided to table this project until further notice.
After much public comment, staff decided to table this project until further notice.
Interested residents in Lolo and Missoula County Public Works are in the early stages of exploring if a resort tax could benefit their community. Resort taxes provide a revenue source for some communities and resort areas to finance certain services. A resort tax in Lolo could help pay for critical infrastructure, such as improvements to and maintenance of roads, bridges, water and sewer systems, sidewalks, trails, lighting, parks and landscaping. These improvements would otherwise require an increase in assessments in Rural Special Improvement Districts (RSIDs) or property taxes. Local voters in the resort area must approve the tax; it cannot be imposed upon a community without a vote.
The goal of resort taxes is to allow places with high numbers of visitors, but relatively few residents, to manage the wear-and-tear on local infrastructure without overburdening local residents. A resort tax could help offset RSID assessments and property taxes for residents in the Lolo area. It is a sales tax that can apply to:
- Hotels, motels and other lodging or camping facilities
- Restaurants, fast food stores and other food service establishments
- Taverns, bars, night clubs, lounges or other public establishments that serve alcohol
- Destination ski resorts or other destination recreational facilities
- Other luxuries sold in the resort area
The following steps must take place before a community votes on a resort tax:
- Community members explore the feasibility and pros/cons of implementing a resort tax. (This is the step we are on now.)
- A committee of community members determines the boundary for the proposed resort area district.
- The Montana Department of Commerce evaluates the proposed district boundary to determine if it meets the criteria to be designated as a resort area.
- 15% of registered voters in the district must sign a petition asking to put a resort tax in place. The petition must include a proposal to impose a resort tax within the proposed resort area, including the rate, duration, effective date and purpose of the tax.
- Upon receiving a petition to establish a resort area, the county commissioners will vote to place the measure on the ballot for an upcoming election. The measure would only appear on ballots of voters in the proposed resort district area.
- If voters approve approve the ballot measure, the resort area district is created.
- Voters in the resort area district can elect a resort area district board to oversee the funds; otherwise the county commissioners manage the funds.
Make sure to scroll down and check out the FAQ section on the right side of this page for answers to common questions about this topic. If you have other questions that the FAQ doesn't answer, ask them below!
Let the Lolo community and Missoula County Public Works know your thoughts on the resort tax.
After much public comment, staff decided to table this project until further notice.
After much public comment, staff decided to table this project until further notice.
Who's Listening
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Phone 406-274-4168 Email knoland@kw.com -
Phone 406-258-4818 Email sstack@missoulacounty.us
As with anything, you need to read the fine print. A resort area must derive the major portion of its economic well being from businesses catering to the recreational and personal needs of persons traveling to or through the area not related to their income production, such as a ski resort, or national park (MCA 7-6-1501). Where is that in Lolo? The tax will be applied not only to "luxury items and lodging" but also restaurants, fast food stores, bars and other places that serve alcohol (MCA 7-6-1503). Only 5% of the tax revenue is applied to reducing property taxes (MCA 7-6-1507). So anyone who goes to McDonalds, the steak house, the flower shop, the grocery store deli, the candy store, the brewery, will pay this tax. In the 90 some days of the "tourist season" the twenty businesses in Lolo that would be affected would generate less than $100,000 - and that is being generous, which adds up to $5000 total in property tax relief, TOTAL, not each property owner. To pay off the $10 million project, it would take around 100 years. Are you willing to do that?
I fully support the resort tax since this would remove some of the tax burden on Missoula County residents. Obviously, the majority of hotel/motel visitors are likely from out of state. More importantly, by placing the tax burden on more luxury, non-essential goods, it gives local residents more control of their income since this would inderectly lower taxes (hopefully) for lower income residents since they are less likely to purchase luxury services. Upper income residents purchase more luxury services, therefore, the tax burden for this would mostly effect upper income residents and out-of-state residents.
We need to implement resort taxes everywhere we can, along with any other taxes that capture tourist dollars, higher taxes on any short term rentals, etc.
No new taxes period.
Find another way of funding your pet projects. You can't take care of what you have now. Why burden the taxpayerswith another hurdle YOU created. GET with the program. NO MEANS NO!
"The goal of resort taxes is to allow places with high numbers of visitors, but relatively few residents, to manage the wear-and-tear on local infrastructure without overburdening local residents." This does not describe Lolo. Lolo does not have high numbers of visitors. We get some commuter traffic, which is great for local businesses, but not tourists. The folks who shop and dine here are the people who live in Lolo. This tax will kill Lolo's local businesses. This tax will burden local residents. Surprisingly, we don't attract a lot of tourist traffic with our one Days Inn and no ski hills or other resort amenities.
The main portion of the economy does NOT come from tourism. The laws should be followed!!
Removed by moderator.
Sounds like another good reason to not stop for any services in lolo. This will not help their local economy rather hurt it as people will just wait to stop in Missoula or Florence instead..
Lolo, MT is anything but a resort. We are drowning in taxes with a new school that doesn’t increase the amount of student that is housed in the old school. Missoula County keeps their allegiance to “Tax and Spend”. STOP SPENDING AND STOP TAXING!