Audit finds hotels owe Onondaga County more than $420K in room-occupancy tax revenue

SYRACUSE, N.Y. — An audit has found that a group of Onondaga County hotels owe the county a total of more than $420,000 from the hotel and motel room-occupancy tax.

The office of Onondaga County Comptroller Martin Masterpole said the report covered 50 hotels and motels for the period 2019 through 2022.

The Office of the Comptroller examined tax returns totaling $9.1 million in room-occupancy tax (ROT), based on $173 million of reported gross revenue. Audited property management records indicated these same returns should have identified $177 million in gross revenue with the result being $9.4 million in ROT due to the county.

The 50 ROT audits conducted and completed in 2022 found 47 operators non-compliant with one or more of the audit criteria following relevant laws, regulations, contracts, standards, measures, expected performance, defined business practices and benchmarks against which performance is compared or evaluated. As a result, the audits found $421,837 (including penalties and interest) in additional revenue for the benefit of the taxpayers of Onondaga County, the comptroller said.

That included $307,065 in underreported revenue and an additional $117,827 in uncollected penalties and interest. The report didn’t name any specific hotel operator that owed the county more tax money.

The Onondaga County Hotel Room Occupancy Tax (ROT) Law permits the county to collect a 7 percent room-rental tax on the per-diem rental charge, per Masterpole’s office.

“The audits performed by my staff continue to find significant underreported revenue for the benefit of Onondaga County taxpayers,” Masterpole said.