ALBANY – The New York State Assembly and Senate passed Assemblyman Tom Abinanti’s (D-Greenburgh/Mt. Pleasant) legislation authorizing the Town of Mt. Pleasant to impose a hotel/motel occupancy tax and the Town of Greenburgh to continue its current hotel tax.
“This legislation ensures that Greenburgh and Mt. Pleasant benefit from this non-property tax revenue like so many other towns and cities,” said Abinanti. “This additional revenue eases the burden on local property taxpayers by collecting a small user fee on out-of-towners staying in local hotels who benefit from using public services provided by the towns and villages. This is a revenue-raising alternative to local property taxes to fund basic and necessary services.”
Greenburgh Supervisor Paul Feiner provided the original impetus for the Greenburgh bill. “Greenburgh receives about a million dollars a year in Hotel Tax revenues from non- residents, not taxpayers. These revenues have helped us keep taxes below the tax cap and have also helped us maintain town roads that tourist use,” said Feiner.
These bills would authorize nine local governments (Town of Greenburgh, Town of Mt. Pleasant and Villages of Tarrytown, Elmsford, Ardsley, Irvington, Dobbs Ferry, Hastings-on-Hudson, and Sleepy Hollow) to collect a hotel/motel occupancy tax of up to 3%. To provide some flexibility, the bill affords each municipality the ability to share a tax collection process.
The bills are awaiting the Governor’s approval.
