Senate Bill No. 249
(By Senators Snyder, Rowe, Fanning, Hunter, Jenkins and Kessler)
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[Introduced January 21, 2004; referred to the Committee on
Government Organization; and then to the Committee on the
Judiciary.]
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A BILL to amend and reenact §7-18-1 of the code of West Virginia,
1931, as amended, relating to annexation generally; limiting
imposition and collection of hotel tax by municipality after
annexation under certain circumstances; providing for a phase
out of collection and imposition of hotel tax by county
commission in certain circumstances; and requiring county
commission to provide hotel tax information to annexing
municipality upon request.
Be it enacted by the Legislature of West Virginia:
That §7-18-1 of the code of West Virginia, 1931, as amended,
be amended and reenacted to read as follows:
CHAPTER 7. COUNTY COMMISSIONS AND OFFICERS.
ARTICLE 18. HOTEL OCCUPANCY TAX.
§7-18-1. Hotel occupancy tax.
(a) Authority to impose.-- On and after the first day of July,
one thousand nine hundred eighty-five, any county or municipality
may impose and collect a privilege tax upon the occupancy of hotel
rooms located within its taxing jurisdiction.
Such The tax shall
be imposed and collected as provided in this article.
(b) Municipal tax.--A municipal hotel tax shall be imposed by
ordinance enacted by the governing body of the municipality, in
accordance with the provisions of article eleven, chapter eight of
this code.
Such The tax shall be imposed uniformly throughout the
municipality; and the tax shall apply to all hotels located within
the corporate limits of the municipality, including hotels owned by
the state or by any political subdivision of this state
: Provided,
That a municipality may only impose the tax on a hotel located
within its corporate limits upon which a county was imposing a
hotel tax immediately preceding annexation of the territory
pursuant to article six, chapter eight of this code within the
following limitations: (1) If the county commission had previously
pledged the revenue specified for a term to a particular project or
projects, then the hotel tax may be retained by the county for the
sole purpose of retiring this obligation; or (2) if the county
commission has not pledged the revenue to a project or projects
prior to the time a petition for annexation is filed, the tax
collected from the hotel shall be amortized over a six-year period
as follows: Beginning on the first day of July of the fiscal year following the annexation, the county shall remit twenty percent of
the taxes collected on the annexed hotel to the municipality, and
shall increase the amount remitted to the municipality by twenty
percent for each year thereafter until one hundred percent of the
taxes collected are remitted to the municipality. Upon reaching
the one hundred percent threshold, the county shall cease
assessment and collection of the hotel tax and the municipality
shall assess and collect its own hotel tax. The county at any
point during the six-year period may relinquish its authority to
assess and collect the hotel tax.
(c) County tax.--A county hotel tax shall be imposed by order
of the county commission duly entered of record.
Such The tax
shall be imposed uniformly throughout the county:
Provided, That
no a county commission may
not impose its tax on hotels located
within the corporate limits of any municipality situated, in whole
or in part, within the county
, except as provided in the preceding
subsection:
Provided, however, That the tax collected by a hotel
owned by a municipality but located outside the corporate limits of
such the municipality pursuant to this article shall be remitted to
the municipality owning
such the hotel for expenditure pursuant to
the provisions of section fourteen of this article. The tax shall
apply to all hotels located outside the corporate limits of a
municipality, including hotels owned by the state or any political
subdivision of this state.
Any county commission pledging hotel taxes to retire debt and pay the interest on revenue bonds shall
make information relating to the revenue bonds available to the
annexing municipality upon request of the municipality.
(d) The tax shall be imposed on the consumer and shall be
collected by the hotel operator as part of the consideration paid
for the occupancy of a hotel room:
Provided, That the tax shall
not be imposed on any consumer occupying a hotel room for thirty or
more consecutive days.
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NOTE: The purpose of this bill is to allow a county
commission to continue receiving the hotel tax on property
annexed by a municipality where the tax has been pledged for a
specific debt to allow the retirement of the debt; where there is
no pledge of the tax to phase in the transfer of taxing authority
to the municipality over a six-year period.
Strike-throughs indicate language that would be stricken
from the present law, and underscoring indicates new language
that would be added.
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