Today, if you check into a motel, hotel or conference center in Peachtree City, on top of your room bill you will pay a 6 percent lodging tax.
The Peachtree City Council Thursday night will consider raising that to as much as 8 percent, plus taking a bigger cut of the tax.
The prospect of the council taking a bigger slice of the hotel/motel tax is being eyed uneasily by the city’s Convention and Visitors Bureau, midway through its fiscal year, which would see less money going directly to it.
“We’re not trying to take money away from the CVB,” Mayor Don Haddix said at a workshop meeting Tuesday night. “This would just give the council more flexibility for the future.”
Under the present arrangement, the 6 percent tax gets split three ways. The city’s general fund gets a third — or 2 percent — of the tax while the CVB gets two-thirds — or 4 percent. Of that 4 percent, the city’s Airport Authority then gets a sliver of that, about eight-tenths of 1 percent.
The council — operating under a new state law that allows more flexibility in setting and distributing the tax — wants to increase its share to half, necessitating less direct money for the CVB and the Airport Authority. The council indicated it would pass through an equivalent amount to the tourism board to make up for CVB’s lost tax income.
Discussions Tuesday night mostly stayed away from notions of increasing the tax from its current 6 percent rate. Instead, the bulk of the talk was about the size of the tax pie slices.
Based on staff estimates, the change in percentages would add about $130,000 to council coffers, while taking away the same amount from the CVB and Airport Authority.
The topic has been added to the Thursday night agenda for a council vote.
