Town officials are going to focus more sharply on collecting business license fees and taxes, especially from vacation homeowners who rent their properties for short-term vacations via do-it-yourself websites.
Any number of sites offer short-term rentals by owners, with no way of telling whether they hold the appropriate town business license.
Tim Gagen, Town Manager, said the growth of the web in the vacation rental business and the proliferation of absentee-owned homes have given the issue a higher profile.
“People are buying these larger homes as an investment and only spend a few weeks of the year in it,” Gagen said, adding that some of those owners then look for a way to get a return on that investment, including short-term rentals.
The town has earmarked $30,000 in the 2006 budget to pay for some contractual auditing, said Gagen, explaining that Breckenridge may work with some of the other local towns in this effort if a cost-sharing arrangement can be reached.
At issue is the Business and Occupational Licenses Tax (BOLT), established in 1986 to generate revenue for marketing the town and town events.
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