Cookeville enforcing stricter regulations on hotel and motel tax collections after increasing its authority to collect payments in a timely fashion.
City Manager James Mills said the city updated its regulatory codes last year to address instances where certain businesses were not paying the required taxes on time. Mills said the city clerk monitors the collections and follows a specific protocol to ensure payments are turned in if an operator falls behind.
“If necessary, we’ll take legal action to ensure that the monies collected by the hotels and motels are remitted in the appropriate time and appropriate fashion,” Mills said.
Mills said the city generates between $800,000 and $900,000 annually from this specific tax. Mills said the revenue is specifically allocated for economic development and tourism purposes. M
“Those payments are by the users of the facilities, they’re collected, and the motel hotel receives a portion of that tax to cover their costs for collecting it, but that is a tax collected from the renters of the rooms and is paid to the city and the county,” Mills said.
Mills said the city drives the majority’s of the county’s hotel motel revenue. Seven of the ten percent collected goes to Putnam County, three percent going to Cookeville.
Mills said the tax is also collected from rentals like Airbnb located throughout the county, though the vast majority of the revenue is generated by hotels and motels located within the city. Mills said there have been fewer issues regarding late payments since the city adopted the amended codes last year.
“Tourism is very, very important to Cookeville and Putnam County,” Mills said. “It attracts outside visitors who come here and spend their money, not just in the hotels and motels, but at the restaurants and shopping and the local retail businesses.”
Mills said the city relies on state law and local ordinances to ensure the tax revenue continues to be paid on time in the future.
