A push is on to level the playing field when it comes to the payment of the 4% Municipal Accommodations Tax (MAT) to the City of Belleville.
Currently Belleville hotels and motels have been paying the tax which is used to attract tourists and residents but the majority of bed and breakfasts and other short term accommodations (STAs) have not.
Mayor of Belleville Mitch Panciuk has asked the Economic and Destination Development Committee (EDDC) to come up with recommendations on how better to collect the MAT from STAs pointing to the fact Prince Edward County already has a licensing, enforcement, and collection regime in place.
At an EDDC meeting Thursday, committee agreed to have Manager Karen Poste continue talks with the Prince Edward County and to research other options when it comes to STAs regulation and MAT collection leading to a report back to committee.
Poste says that without a pandemic affecting business it’s expected that Belleville hotels/motels would pay about $900,000 a year in MAT to the city.
It’s estimated that if STAs were paying the tax that total would rise to well over one million dollars.
Depending on the day it’s estimated there are 80 to 150 bed and breakfast operations in business in Belleville.
Poste told the committee that identifying them and trying to collect the MAT would be difficult and time consuming for the staff now available.
