Hotel Group Bashes Proposed Local Tax

Calling the law "unfair" and "anti-business" the Westchester Hotel Association has denounced proposals from 10 area municipalities to add a 3 percent hotel occupancy tax.

The 31-member group said in a statement that the tax "targets a specific industry and will damage the ability of its members to compete for corporate business."

Ten Westchester municipalities——have applied for the tax since 2010; when the state government allowed the Village of Rye Brook to impose the tax. Before then only cities in the state had been allowed to collect on the tax.

If approved at the state level, the tax would bring anywhere from $200,000 to $400,000 in additional revenue to Harrison, according to town estimates. The town has lobbied to impose the tax each of the last three years, but it has gained little traction at the state level as lawmakers have taken a harder stand against new taxes. 

Predictably, area hotels are against the tax, citing concerns that higher prices will drive customers out of the county.

“There’s never a good time to be hit with a new tax, but this is a particularly damaging moment for the dozens of hotels in Westchester that would be affected by the proposed new room occupancy tax,” said Association President Dan Conte. “The competition for corporate business from neighboring Connecticut, Rockland and New Jersey is intense, and a tax like this just makes us less competitive."

In order to impose the tax, communities must adopt a Home-Rule request that must be approved by the state legislature. Harrison approved its Home-Rule request earlier this year, joining the Villages of Ardsley, Dobbs Ferry, Elmsford, Hastings, Irvington, Tarrytown, Sleepy Hollow and Mamaroneck and the town of Greenburgh.

The law would allow Harrison to levy the tax at the Renaissance Westchester, the Summerfield Suites and the Westchester Country Club. It has gained local support because the taxes would be placed mostly on out-of-town visitors and generate a needed boost in revenue.

But the Westchester Hotel Association views the tax as an unfair attack on their businesses that are already taxed at the county level.

“We are aware of the financial difficulties many municipalities are having because of tax caps and their reluctance to raise property taxes that are born by all of their residents and businesses," Conte said. "But singling out one economic sector to be a municipal funding source sends a strong anti-business message."