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Online Travel Companies

AIF OPPOSES any legislation that seeks to permanently provide online travel companies with an unfair tax advantage.

Online Travel Companies (OTCs) should not have an unfair advantage over companies located and doing business in Florida. Instead of collecting and remitting occupancy taxes on the retail rates paid by consumers for hotel rooms, OTCs have chosen to remit such taxes based on the wholesale rate they pay hotels for rooms. This inequity in how taxes are being remitted is hurting Florida’s tourism economy and hoteliers — who have been collecting and remitting occupancy taxes to the state, counties and municipalities for years. Any legislation that permanently codifies the OTC’s business model would be bad for Florida employers and would open the door to demands from other wholesale-to-retail businesses seeking a similar tax windfall if this market-distorting tax advantage were enacted by the Legislature.