Columbia Falls looks to get out the facts on resort tax

The Columbia Falls City Council will look to get the facts out on a proposed 3% resort tax in the coming months.

Council discussed the tax at length Feb. 3 with city manager Susan Nicosia. There’s still a lot of misinformation out there, members noted. Perhaps the biggest one is the tax applies to new and used vehicles — it doesn’t.

At a public hearing in January, the crowd was roughly split on the tax — many folks who opposed it didn’t live in the city, but they shopped here.

Councilman Mike Shepard said he went out and talked to some folks about the tax on his own after the hearing. He said a couple of people even apologized to him after he gave them the facts on the tax.

Mayor Don Barnhart said he’s fielded questions as well. The one question he had is how the city will track vacation rentals to make sure they’re paying the tax.

Nicosia said the city will do its own auditing and can also get assistance from the state Department of Revenue, which collects the mandatory state bed tax. She also noted that websites like Airbnb will collect the tax for the city, adding it into the final bill.

In the end, the council decided to attend civic group gatherings and do a direct mail fact sheet before the vote. The idea of the tax is to capture tourist revenue as they travel through and stay in town. More than half of the monies will be used to emergency services, like police and fire, and city property taxpayers will also see a rebate on their property taxes.

Council can’t lobby for the tax, but it can give out information on the tax and what items it targets. The tax is designed to target items a tourist would use, such as restaurant meals, alcohol, candy, and a host of other items. It does not tax items like groceries and almost all clothing, hardware store items, auto parts, etc.

Council made no formal vote on the measure, but it’s likely it will approve the final ballot language by early March. The vote will then be held by a mail-in ballot this spring to correspond with the June 2 primary.

In other news:

- The council continued to go through and approve the city’s codes and regulations. The codes are being streamlined and will eventually be posted on the city’s website so users can look them up quickly and easily.

- The council approved the annexation of the former Plum Creek headquarters into the city limits. Glacier Medical Associates is building a medical facility there and will need city sewer and water. It hopes to have the remodel done by September, Nicosia told council.