Quinte West is looking at building a registry for unregistered short-term accommodations.
During Thursday’s Economic Development, Tourism, and Special Events advisory committee meeting, councillors received a report from municipal staff on setting up a program to identify short-term accommodations like Airbnbs in Quinte West.
While a Municipal Accommodation Tax was established in 2019, the 4% tax is only collected from licensed businesses since no program to track short-term accommodations was ever established. Under the current laws, Airbnbs and similar short-term accommodations are still required to pay the tax, but there’s currently no enforcement in place.
The report highlights a few pros and cons to implementing the registry. Cost is one point of concern, as maintaining the registry and ensuring compliance could take significant labour hours by municipal staff. One major benefit listed is the potential for increased MAT revenue, with more short-term accommodations paying into the pool.
The committee accepted the report from staff, but did not commit to implementing the program.
