{"id":403727,"date":"2024-01-02T14:00:00","date_gmt":"2024-01-02T14:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/?p=403727"},"modified":"-0001-11-30T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"-0001-11-29T14:00:00","slug":"Ogo-bill-tightens-tax-collection-for-B-Bs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/Ogo-bill-tightens-tax-collection-for-B-Bs\/","title":{"rendered":"Ogo bill tightens tax collection for B&Bs"},"content":{"rendered":"

Rep. Julie A. Ogo (Ind-Rota) has introduced a bill that clarifies and codifies the meaning of the terms \u201cshort-term accommodations\u201d and \u201ctransient accommodation\u201d to ensure the proper collection of taxes from bed-and-breakfast facilities in the CNMI. She touts this as a revenue-generating measure that avoids raising taxes further.<\/p>\n

Ogo says her bill, House Bill 23-93, is needed to facilitate efficient enforcement of the laws and regulations by providing the mechanisms and tools for the government agencies to audit and inspect facilities and their operations.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Department of Finance and the Zoning Board need to make sure that properties for B&B operations are not disguised as house or residential rentals,\u201d Ogo said.<\/p>\n

The bill defines \u201cshort-term accommodations\u201d as any hotel, motel, house, and apartel (apartment hotel) facility or owners of hotels, motels, apartels, houses\u2014the whole house or a room in a house\u2014, condominium and apartment units, or property that offers temporary accommodations or lodgings for a set fee and the length of stay of a guest(s) does not exceed 360 days.<\/p>\n

It also defines \u201ctransient accommodation\u201d as a short-term accommodation, lodging, or living accommodation of any kind, \u201cfor a set daily, nightly, weekly, or monthly fee multiplied by the length of stay, not exceeding 360 days, that a guest(s) rents in the Commonwealth.<\/p>\n

The proposed bill also provides that all online and local platforms where \u201ctransient accommodations\u201d are advertised, provide booking, and payment collection services are required to register with the Department of Finance to be certified for a fee through their local clients before engaging in an agreement to host bookings, payment service, and advertisements.<\/p>\n

These hosting platforms will be required to file separate supporting records indicating their names, registration certificate numbers, names and addresses of local operators and booking data at the end of each Business Gross Tax Return cycle to be filed as a supporting document to the Hotel Occupancy Tax filing.<\/p>\n

This will assist the Department of Finance in their auditing effort by giving them an edge to cross check and verify reported income of local operators on Business Gross Revenue filing, she added.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have been receiving inconsistent revenue reporting from the Department of Finance on B&B operations and many of the B&B clients have also been reporting that they were never charged Hotel Occupancy Tax. Therefore we need to do everything we can to give our regulatory agencies the legal foundation to promulgate efficient rules and regulations to verify reporting accuracy and collect due tax revenue, especially now that we are facing financial challenges.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis measure should be understood by our agencies and general public as part of an effort not to resort to imposing more taxes. We all must work together by being each others\u2019 eyes and ears so the government can continue providing public services.\u201d Ogo, said.<\/p>\n

Ogo\u2019s bill is titled \u201cTo amend Title 4, Division 1, by adding a new Chapter 13 and repealing Chapter 5, \u00a7 1502, Hotel Occupancy Tax, and for other purposes.\u201d<\/p>\n

If anyone wants a copy of the bill and comment on it, contact Ogo\u2019s office at 670-664-8888 or write to kuentosmarianas@gmail.com<\/a>. (Saipan Tribune)<\/em><\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Rep. Julie Ogo<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Rep. Julie A. Ogo (Ind-Rota) has introduced a bill that clarifies and codifies the meaning…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-403727","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-local-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/403727","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=403727"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/403727\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=403727"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=403727"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=403727"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}