{"id":21367,"date":"2020-02-11T11:34:54","date_gmt":"2020-02-11T18:34:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.skyhinews.com\/?p=63112"},"modified":"2020-02-11T11:34:54","modified_gmt":"2020-02-11T18:34:54","slug":"short-term-rental-tax-bill-makes-colorado-senate-finance-agenda-but-is-not-expected-to-pass","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/krky\/local-news\/short-term-rental-tax-bill-makes-colorado-senate-finance-agenda-but-is-not-expected-to-pass\/","title":{"rendered":"Short-term rental tax bill makes Colorado Senate finance agenda but is not expected to pass"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n
Hotel, motel and bed and breakfast owners pay nonresidential property tax rates of 29%. Alpine Inn owner Bernadeta Matys said this puts hospitality businesses at a disadvantage compared with short-term rental property owners who pay the residential rate of 7.96%.<\/strong>
Taylor Sienkiewicz \/ tsienkiewicz@summitdaily.com<\/em><\/figcaption><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n

FRISCO \u2014 On Tuesday, Feb. 11, Sen. Bob Gardner, R-Colorado Springs, is hosting a session for Senate Bill 20-109<\/a>. The bill, which seeks to classify short-term rental properties as commercial properties<\/a> for tax purposes, is listed as an action item in Tuesday\u2019s Senate finance agenda, but Gardner said he does not expect the bill to pass and that passing the bill was not his intention in bringing it forward.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy purpose of bringing the bill was not to raise taxes or to raise tax revenues. \u2026 I did not expect the regime that is in my bill to pass nor do I really want it to pass,\u201d Gardner said. \u201cI want to focus a lot of attention on this issue of short-term rentals, how they\u2019re assessed, equity in the assessment. What does it mean for communities in terms of tax revenues? What does it mean in terms of fairness for other short-term rental business models, hotels and motels?\u201d<\/p>\n

Gardner said he first learned about the short-term rental tax issue from the El Paso County tax assessor and from the annual tax assessor meeting.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat I heard from my own assessor was that \u2026 tax assessors right now are somewhat on their own deciding what to do,\u201d Gardner said. \u201cNone of them have kicked over the rock and said, \u2018Short-term rentals, when you have a lot of them and they are operating as commercial enterprise, that\u2019s commercial property.\u2019 They\u2019re under a fair amount of pressure to do so.\u201d<\/p>\n

Summit County Assessor Frank Celico, explained that property classifications date back to the passing of the Gallagher Amendment, which was adopted into the Colorado Constitution in 1982<\/a> and differentiates residential and nonresidential properties for tax purposes.<\/p>\n

Nonresidential property is taxed at 29% while the property tax rate for residential property in Colorado is 7.96%.<\/p>\n

Celico said that after a residential property is assessed as residential, it\u2019s not typically part of his job as an assessor to monitor the property for occupancy or use.<\/p>\n

He explained that while the short-term rental market significantly impacts the county and something must be done about the availability of housing for locals, the bill as written might not be practical for assessors.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt would be extremely burdensome to have to monitor properties for use because ultimately what it comes down to is the owner\u2019s word versus an assessor\u2019s word,\u201d Celico said.<\/p>\n

The bill includes a 30-day caveat for homeowners, meaning if the owner lives in the home for 30 days or more, they are free to rent out the home on other days of the year and not be subject to the nonresidential property tax. However, if an owner stays in the home less than 30 days per year, the property would be designated as a short-term rental and be taxed the 29% rate. This is intended to be a way to distinguish properties that are used in a commercial fashion from second-home owners who occasionally rent out their homes, but Celico said it would be very difficult to enforce. <\/p>\n

\u201cThat is the biggest sticking point from the assessor\u2019s standpoint, is how could we possibly confirm that one way or another?\u201d Celico said. \u201cI\u2019m not sure how many people I\u2019d need to have in my office or what technology is available for us to determine when an owner is occupying one of the 28,000 residential properties in Summit County.\u201d<\/p>\n

Celico is testifying during the Tuesday session, and he said that while it is his understanding that the bill likely will not pass, his goal is to explain how short-term rentals impact the county. He referred to the number of Airbnb visits in Summit County that were reported this fall<\/a> \u2014 which put Summit County second after Denver County for bringing in the most summer guests via the rental site \u2014 and plans to explain how the growing short-term rental market has affected housing prices and availability.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s the problem we\u2019re ultimately trying to address,\u201d Celico said. \u201cWe\u2019re not trying to undermine people\u2019s business. It\u2019s to make sure there\u2019s a fair playing field.\u201d<\/p>\n

Celico said he also plans to discuss the implementation issues he sees from an assessor\u2019s perspective.<\/p>\n

Both Gardner and Celico brought up leveling the playing field specifically for the rest of the hospitality industry. Gardner said he has been contacted by the owners of small hotels and bed and breakfast oppositions that say they are in direct competition with short-term rental properties but pay more than three times the assessment rate in property taxes. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt seems like it is not fair to people in the hotel business, and also I believe wasn\u2019t the intention of people who voted for the Gallagher Amendment,\u201d Celico said. \u201cThis was not a foreseeable circumstance with the short-term rental property exploding.\u201d<\/p>\n

Alpine Inn owner Bernadeta Matys said the difference in taxes that her inn must pay compared with a short-term rental property significantly affects her business. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe do get a lot of comments from guests that short-term rentals are less expensive, condos are less expensive than staying at a hotel room,\u201d Matys said. \u201cSo am I for taxes for the short-term rentals? Yes, I am because then we\u2019ll all be even.\u201d<\/p>\n

Matys said that aside from guests, she also loses valuable employees like housekeepers to short-term rentals because they\u2019re often paid in cash. <\/p>\n

\u201cIf you want to buy a property and rent it, then great,\u201d Matys said. \u201cBut go by the same rules and pay the same taxes.\u201d<\/p>\n

Gardner said that while this particular bill might not be successful, he has plans to continue the conversation about short-term rentals. <\/p>\n

\u201cI thought initially that maybe we\u2019d turn that bill into an interim committee or tax force discussion,\u201d Gardner said. \u201cI\u2019ve found out that the sensitivities about having this discussion are so raw that I think we\u2019re going to have to do those discussions informally.\u201d<\/p>\n

Gardner said that after meeting with several real estate professionals, including those from Summit County on Jan. 30<\/a>, he found that groups of stakeholders were strongly against the bill. He said legislative stakeholder meetings are common at the Capitol and will hopefully breed some solutions. <\/p>\n

\u201cInvestors in short-term rentals need to recognize that there\u2019s no good, solid statutory guarantee that the treatment they\u2019re receiving is going to stay the same. We can\u2019t keep having 64 different assessors with 64 different ideas. The reality is there\u2019s not really a policy,\u201d Gardner said about the assessment of short-term rentals. \u201cIt\u2019s not a policy; it\u2019s a blind eye.\u201d<\/p>\n

via:: Sky-Hi News<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Hotel, motel and bed and breakfast owners pay nonresidential property tax rates of 29%. Alpine Inn owner Bernadeta Matys said this puts hospitality businesses at a disadvantage compared with short-term rental property owners who pay the residential rate of 7.96%.Taylor Sienkiewicz \/ tsienkiewicz@summitdaily.com FRISCO \u2014 On Tuesday, Feb. 11, Sen. Bob Gardner, R-Colorado Springs, is […]<\/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":[56],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-21367","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-local-news"},"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-06-18 06:33:44","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":"KRKY Ski Country","distributor_original_site_url":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/krky","push-errors":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/krky\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21367","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/krky\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/krky\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/krky\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/krky\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21367"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/krky\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21367\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/krky\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21367"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/krky\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21367"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/krky\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21367"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}