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Hotel-motel tax sets fiscal-year record
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Hotel-motel tax sets fiscal-year record
Lincoln County's 4% lodging tax wrapped up another fiscal-year record in April, while North Platte's 2% sales tax extended its current streak of setting monthly records to 14 months.
June 18, 2024 | North Platte Telegraph
The hotel-motel tax netted $94,903 for the month, finishing the state's 2023-24 fiscal year with an all-time high of just over $1.27 million in collections, according to new figures last week from the Nebraska Department of Revenue.
April's total beat the county's monthly record of $89,794 set in 2023, based on online records dating to 2006. All proceeds must be used for tourism promotion under state law.
Net city sales tax proceeds were just over $1.29 million for April, the first anniversary since a temporary, voter-approved halfcent increase for recreation projects took effect in April 2023.
North Platte has set sales-tax records for each calendar month since March 2023, the last month in which local businesses collected only the city's "base" 1.5% tax.
Voters in November 2022 approved collecting $52.5 million from the half-cent increase to expand the North Platte Recreation Complex and Cody Pool and relocate the city's skate park. More than $4.27 million has been collected so far since the temporary tax took effect.
Overall sales tax collections for the city's 202324 fiscal year reached just under $12 million in April, beating the tax's $11.9 million transition-year record for 2022-23. The city's fiscal year ends Sept. 30.
North Platte's Quality Growth Fund also moved within range in April of receiving its maximum $650,000 annual allotment for local economic development assistance.
QGF receives half of monthly sales tax proceeds collected under the permanent 1.5% rate, up to that maximum amount, once annual fiscal-year collections reach a preset "trigger point." That threshold was crossed for 2023-24 in March.
Since that point, QGF has qualified to receive $539,851 of its $650,000 cap. Once it's reached, the city's general fund will again receive 100% of net proceeds from the base tax.