{"id":24468,"date":"2019-05-29T17:20:00","date_gmt":"2019-05-29T23:20:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.summitdaily.com\/news\/colorado-supreme-court-sides-with-travel-companies-over-breckenridge-in-taxation-case\/"},"modified":"2019-05-29T17:20:00","modified_gmt":"2019-05-29T23:20:00","slug":"colorado-supreme-court-sides-with-travel-companies-over-breckenridge-in-taxation-case","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kift\/local-news\/colorado-supreme-court-sides-with-travel-companies-over-breckenridge-in-taxation-case\/","title":{"rendered":"Colorado supreme court sides with travel companies over Breckenridge in taxation case"},"content":{"rendered":"
The Colorado Supreme Court and Colorado Court of Appeals building in Denver.<\/strong>
Cliff Grassmick \/ Daily Camera | Staff Photographer<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Online travel companies aren\u2019t required to pay accommodation and sales taxes in the town of Breckenridge, the Colorado Supreme Court ruled earlier this month.<\/p>\n

Since 2016, the town of Breckenridge has been engaged in litigation against 16 online travel companies, including major players in the industry like Expedia, Hotels.com and Hotwire. The town claimed that OTCs are required to collect and remit accommodation and sales taxes associated with hotel reservations in town and sought monetary relief for unpaid taxes. The district court sided with the OTCs, and Breckenridge brought the case to the Colorado Court of Appeals.<\/p>\n

In January 2018, the court of appeals issued an opinion on the case affirming the district court\u2019s decision that OTCs aren\u2019t required to pay the taxes \u2014 largely on the basis of specific language in the town code, noting that the OTCs are just intermediaries between customers and hotels and not considered \u201crenters\u201d or \u201clessors\u201d of hotel rooms in town.<\/p>\n

Breckenridge issued a certiorari petition last year, and in August the Colorado Supreme Court agreed to hear the case<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Following a hearing May 9, the state Supreme Court decided to affirm the appellate court\u2019s decision in a split 3-3 vote. Justice Melissa Hart didn\u2019t take part in the decision because Breckenridge had previously hired her as an expert witness before her appointment to the court in December 2017. According to the opinion, an equally divided court affirms the decision of the court of appeals<\/a> by operation of law.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re disappointed in the decision and that we lost because of a tie because one judge was recused,\u201d the town\u2019s finance director Brian Waldes said. \u201cThe court did recently side with Denver in a similar case, and our ordinance\u2019s language is close to theirs. We\u2019re considering altering the ordinance in light of the decision. It\u2019s on the table.\u201d<\/p>\n

Waldes is referring to another Colorado Supreme Court case in which the court decided that Denver\u2019s lodger\u2019s tax article imposed a duty on OTCs to collect and remit prescribed taxes on the purchase price of any lodging they sell. While it may seem like Denver\u2019s argument was substantially similar to Breckenridge\u2019s, as asserted by the town\u2019s attorneys, the court wasn\u2019t persuaded.<\/p>\n

The difference comes in the language used within each entity\u2019s tax codes. According to the appellate court\u2019s decision, Denver\u2019s lodger\u2019s tax requires \u201cvendors\u201d to pay the prescribed taxes. Breckenridge\u2019s accommodation tax code instead focuses in on \u201clessors\u201d and \u201crenters,\u201d and the court of appeals decided that because OTCs are not the \u201crightful possessors\u201d of the rooms, they\u2019re essentially just brokers and not subject to the tax under Breckenridge\u2019s laws.<\/p>\n

Breckenridge\u2019s current code<\/a> states: \u201c(The) legislative intent of the town council in enacting this chapter is that every person who, for consideration, leases or rents any hotel room, motel room, or other accommodation located in the town shall pay and every person who furnishes for lease or rental any such accommodation shall collect the tax imposed by this chapter.\u201d<\/p>\n

Breckenridge imposes a 3.4% accommodation tax on the price paid for the leasing or renting of any hotel room.<\/p>\n

In theory, the town could pass a new ordinance to update the code\u2019s language to better mirror Denver\u2019s, though the Taxpayer Bill of Rights would require it to go before the town\u2019s voters in the form of a ballot question.<\/p>\n

\u201cStaff believes, and has believed all along, if we didn\u2019t prevail in the litigation, the ultimate remedy is to amend the ordinance, which would require a TABOR election,\u201d town attorney Tim Berry said at the town\u2019s regular council meeting Tuesday night. \u201cWe have a template that worked for Denver. So we\u2019re going to consider if we can amend our ordinance to draft it into the decision that Denver won.\u201d<\/p>\n

Berry noted that there\u2019s also a chance the OTCs, as the prevailing party, could seek to recover costs from the case from the town, but he said it\u2019s unlikely. Additionally, Berry said that because the town didn\u2019t win, the law firm the town hired to handle the case, Lewis Roca Rothgerber Christie LLP, wouldn\u2019t be paid because they took the case on contingency.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019re almost as disappointed as we are,\u201d Berry said.<\/p>\n

Neither the firm representing Breckenridge nor the firm representing the online travel companies on the case, Connelly Law LLC, returned calls for comment on the decision.<\/p>\n

via:: Summit Daily<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Colorado Supreme Court and Colorado Court of Appeals building in Denver.Cliff Grassmick \/ Daily Camera | Staff Photographer Online travel companies aren\u2019t required to pay accommodation and sales taxes in the town of Breckenridge, the Colorado Supreme Court ruled earlier this month. Since 2016, the town of Breckenridge has been engaged in litigation against […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[97],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-24468","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-local-news"},"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-06-11 08:14:10","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"distributor_meta":false,"distributor_terms":false,"distributor_media":false,"distributor_original_site_name":"KIFT - The LIFT FM","distributor_original_site_url":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kift","push-errors":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kift\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24468","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kift\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kift\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kift\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kift\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=24468"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kift\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24468\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kift\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24468"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kift\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24468"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kift\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24468"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}