The office of Onondaga County Comptroller Martin Masterpole performed the audit. The report covered 50 hotels and motels for the period 2019 through 2022, per the Feb. 9 announcement. 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 […]
The office of Onondaga County Comptroller Martin Masterpole performed the audit. The report covered 50 hotels and motels for the period 2019 through 2022, per the Feb. 9 announcement.
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 audit report indicates the major areas in which operators weren’t compliant included not submitting collected ROT to the county; lack of documentation to support guest’s tax-exempt status; inaccurately completing the ROT quarterly returns; not increasing the ROT rate to 7 percent to comply with Local Law No. 1 - 2021; not reconciling internal reports, such as exempt guest stay reports to accounting reports; not charging ROT against cot fee or roll-away bed revenue; and not charging ROT against pet-fee revenue.
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.
The Office of the Comptroller discusses all audit findings with the management of the hotel/ motel prior to written notification of the audit results, per the report.
