At the December Lake of Bays Council meeting, discussions regarding short-term rentals in the township turned to the idea of implementing an accommodation tax of 3.5 per cent throughout the municipality.
Some councillors welcomed the idea of generating additional revenue, particularly for events in the municipality, while others expressed concern about making things harder for the limited number of resorts in the community while trying to tax short-term rentals. “I mean if it was a separate tax only, sure, but since we can’t separate it I’m not in favour of it and again I think it gives an advantage to Lake of Bays. Now we’re 3.5 [per cent] cheaper than Huntsville or Bracebridge so the resorts may fill up even more. So I wouldn’t be in favour of collecting it,” said Councillor Bob Lacroix.
Lake of Bays Mayor Terry Glover had a different take. He spoke of the possibility of collecting revenue in order to generate more events and visitor opportunities to the municipality. “I think you could create an economic driver to our area,” said Glover, adding that it could be an advantage depending on what it would cost to get the system up and running and the expected revenue. “It’s happening everywhere. Everyone is looking at adding it. All the towns are adding it and it isn’t an advantage for us to have no events and no economic driver around rental units, in my humble opinion.”
Councillor George Anderson said he was not in favour of it. “I see it as a clear disadvantage for our resort operators that are kind of struggling anyways,” he said, adding that while he understands the advantages of creating an economic driver he worried about adding stressors to the resorts in Lake of Bays. Anderson also said he’d be amenable to having staff explore the idea further and return to council with a report.
Councillor Jacqueline Godard said the idea had merit. She said an accommodation tax could be up to 6 per cent, “so 3.5 is on the lower level of the spectrum.”
Councillor Rick Brooks said he is in favour of instituting a municipal accommodation tax. “It is an initial inconvenience to the resort owners but I think they will see in the long run—and we have to see the dollars of course—but I think they will see in the long run that it will be an asset to them as well as to the municipality…” Brooks added seeing part of that tax go into promoting Lake of Bays would be beneficial.
Glover agreed and noted that from his business experience marketing costs can run well above 3.5 per cent of revenue. Godard also noted that if the tax were to be implemented an association would have to be created outside of the municipality thereby including stakeholders.
In the end, council directed staff to return with a report exploring the possibility of implementing such a tax.
Councillor Nancy Tapley declared a conflict, and was not present for the discussion.
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Over the last 60 years, government “bright ideas” have come and gone.
Most are active for a few years and then gradually fade to a grey scrap heap of history.
Few actually result in any measurable gain to the tourism industry that would not have happened regardless of their efforts.
A crowded Dwight Beach does not make a profit for me. As a matter of fact, the greater the crowding, the less likely my guests are to take part.
Festivals and events always take place on holidays of course and as one of the industry that accommodates all these visitors, I always work on these holidays so personally they make no difference to me. I won’t likely be there.
Pretty much everything now has a “fee” associated with it. The Dorset tower, Ragged Falls, the Parks as always. Now we are to add a tax.
Remember, business already collects 13% right off the top. We do this for free. Nobody helps cover the cost of collection, accounting and remitting this tax. What it goes to and what it does for us locally is anybody’s guess. I sure don’t know.
Tourism business usually is located in a somewhat desirable area so out property taxes are great and in no way controlled by ourselves.
Despite some thoughts to the contrary, the few (very few actually) resorts left in this area are not golden geese. More like sitting ducks!!
Unlike Air B&B my business is bolted to the ground. I cannot just flit electronically to some other jurisdiction, pocket the money, ignore the tax and get away with it like these internet entities do. There is a reason why outfits like the proverbial Air B&B went from nothing to the largest accommodator on the planet in less than 10 years whereas small resorts like myself have been working hard for 60 years just to hang onto our little junk of land. They were very very favorably treated as far as taxes go.
Slightly larger outfits like Red Leaves and Deerhurst (nothing specific they just have good advertising so come to mind) have benefited, over the years with tricky financial restructuring, forgivable loans and things that could come from an accommodation tax. They still claim to need more money however.
Road taxes buried in fuel costs and soon to be added to electric vehicles as mileage charges are another form of tax.
Anything you might wish to do, on your own property or otherwise is overseen by a bylaw somewhere and you can be sure there is a fee for this “parenthood”.
So I’m left scratching my head, wondering what this “little” 3 or 4 or 6% tax is going to accomplish for ME?
I’m also wondering what it is going to cost to collect it and administer it and how some entity is going to decide what to spend it on.
We have nice looking duplicates of the MTO signs for Dwight, Dorset, Baysville, Hillside etc now. At a cost I’m told of over $50,000.00 plus ongoing maintenance. The original MTO signs are still there.
The TODS directional signs are a monopoly, run by an outfit from Georgia (USA) and are extremely expensive to the point of not being worth the bother. (People don’t read anyway, they just use their GPS)
We get surveys on how to “perfect” Dwight but the people doing the surveys don’t even know the MTO plan to make highway 60 into 4 lanes so their ideas are fairly out to lunch besides being expensive and in consideration of winter, impractical.
Bottom line is I think I am taxed and controlled quite enough already. I do not feel the warm fuzzy feeling of contentment rising up to make me start to collect another tax for some unknown bureaucrat to spend for me on their behalf. A bureaucrat, who probably makes a bigger salary then me and does not live in the township and more than likely has few to none of the worries I have to contend with daily as a business owner. One who will get a nice job switch or retirement through the constantly revolving door to the public feeding area of government. Heck, there is a significant probability that the tax money will be used to build direct competition to my existing business. Now that is an interesting use of tax money I might collect.
Has anyone on Council asked the resort owners? If there is a net benefit for them they will naturally be in favour and support it. The opposite is also true.