Niagara County To Charge Major Hotel ‘Bed Tax?’

Niagara County has reached an agreement to continue to tax you if you rent a hotel room. The County will collect a 5% bed tax on all hotel rooms that are rented out. Now, this tax isn't actually per bed but per room. The cities of Lockport and Niagara Falls are not included in this agreement because they charge their own bed taxes that are not collected by the county.

Under the agreement, Niagara County distributes 95% of the first 4% collected to Destination Niagara USA, with that remaining 1% dedicated to the Discover Niagara Shuttle. Niagara County keeps 5% for administrative expenses in collecting the tax", according to WNYpapers.com.

Now, this isn't the first county to do such a tax.

In fact, it is known more legally as the Transient Occupancy Tax (TOT), and some cities have a tax rate for renting a hotel room up to 12%, which many feel is an outrageous fee. If you were spending, let's say, nearly $400 for a hotel room, that five or twelve percent would be either $20 or $48.

I remember back in the day when it was much easier to get a hotel room. There was no extra tax on top of the regular sales tax. One has to wonder what do they actually do with this money. Is the money actually used to keep other local taxes low? The money that was raised in 2021 was $52 million.