GEORGETOWN, Colo. — The town of Georgetown sees hundreds of thousands of visitors every year, many of whom choose to stay in short-term rentals booked through Airbnb, VRBO and other sites. But town leaders say they aren't always getting the lodging tax revenue generated by those sites.
Denver7 sat down with Georgetown town administrator Rick Keuroglian, who said they've had to pass a new ordinance to help with this problem.
“This place is amazing. Georgetown is such a unique gift. It's a Hallmark card," said Keuroglian. “You have these shops that are here that have unique storefronts and gift shops and things like that, ice cream and places for kids.”
Keuroglian said those are some of the things that attract around 450,000 visitors a year.
He said the town has 44 short-term rental properties but they haven't been seeing all of the money they should be receiving from those taxes.
“When we began to assess how much lodging tax we're supposed to be getting. We're not getting anything close to that. And so what we're finding is there are third-party hosting sites that are collecting on behalf of the short-term rental owner. They're collecting, but they're not remitting," he said.
Because of this, the town has had to step in. On Tuesday, they passed a new ordinance to make some changes.
"[They] basically address where, no longer can third-party hosting sites, collect and remit. Now, it's going to be required by the homeowner who owns the short-term rental," Keuroglian said.
Property owners will also be required to keep the town in the loop when they rent their places out.
"There's a monthly reporting system of exactly which site you used, how much you use, how often are you using so that we can keep track to make sure that the town is getting the appropriate lodging tax that is owed to the town," he said, adding they're still hoping to recoup some of that lost revenue, but it could take a while.
He also explained that the town's budget is significantly impacted by not getting those funds.
"We have a budget of what we can spend as far as marketing our businesses, as far as bringing in events. And we also we pay a salary to a staff member that oversees this, our marketing, and events Manager. And so when that doesn't come in, it affects everything," Keuroglian said. "Something's got to change. Either, we can't do the events that we're wanting to and we've been traditionally doing. So we don't want to do that. So we're trying to get ahead of this."
He said homeowners who own the short-term rental properties will get a grace period. The changes won't go into effect until July 1.
