PRINCETON – New Mercer County businesses can set up shop and put up their signs without the county's government knowing about them, so the Mercer County Commission is looking at improvements that could bring in thousands in tax dollars.
Mercer County's hotel/motel tax, which is used to help fund economic development involving tourism, came up when Jamie Null, executive director of the Mercer County Convention & Visitors Bureau, spoke to the commission Tuesday about her bureau's annual report and its progress during 2024. The report outlines all the bureau's initiatives, accomplishments and results of its advertising campaigns, its community involvement and some interstate tourism.
Null said that the year 2024 had highest spending she has seen during her 10 years with the bureau. The report includes figures from 2023.
"So we have hit over $200 million in visitors spending in 2023 and that number comes from the West Virginia Department of Tourism," she said.
The tourism industry's economic activity creates savings for the county's residents, Null told the commissioners.
"Because of tourism, every household in Mercer County saves $718 in taxes," Null said. "So the more visitors' spending that we bring in, the more savings our families get in Mercer County because of that."
With Starry Eyes Media creative director Brandon Gilbert attending the meeting, Null asked the commission about how the county's hotel/motel tax is paid. Gilbert was there to discuss building a new website for the Mercer County Animal Shelter.
Information about the hotel/motel tax is not on the county's website, she said. If there is a search on the internet for how to pay Mercer County's hotel/motel tax, users are taken to the Mercer County Convention & Visitors Bureau website and not the county's website.
"We do a great job. I think of working together to make sure that we are in compliance, but I would like to ask for the county to have more information about the hotel/motel tax on their website because we have a lot of property owners who do not live here. And the information is not on your website or the form for them to find it easily, so we have had a lot of conversations with people who have tried to find it and assume we don't have one," Null said.
Hotels, motels and ATV resorts and other businesses offering lodging do not have a way to pay their taxes online, she said. Instead, they have to visit the Mercer County Courthouse or mail a check.
"Also, there's not a way for them to pay online, so people still have to come into the courthouse or they have to mail a check and we have a lot of property owners who don't live here, like for example, the Hatfield-McCoy Trails, we have a lot of people who not residents and might not have access to pay that," Null said. "So I wanted to bring that up in a formal discussion. "
Puckett asked Gilbert if extra pages including the tax information could be put on the county's website. Gilbert replied this would be possible if he had a copy of the form and that new pages could help facilitate the payment processing.
"We don't currently have any payment options, do we?" Puckett said.
"No sir," Gilbert replied.
Not being able to keep track of the county's businesses has been a challenge, too.
"Just so the public knows, and Jamie and I have had a lot of discussions about this, is that the county does not have a business registry," Puckett said. "If you don't have a direct account or a conversation with the Secretary of State's Office, we don't know if a business shows up in the county until they put a sign on the door. And that's a problem because you've got several busineses, ATVs in particular, that come in, they open up a cabin, they have a business essentially. We don't that they're there."
"And so the other problem is we spend tens of thousands of dollars sending out tax tickets to businesses that no longer exist," Puckett said. "So we waste of ton of money, so what we need to do is create a registry system to where that allows a business to come in and sign up essentially with the county saying we know you're here. We recognize and that we start having on ongoing process, but the money that we also lose in terms of the hotel/motel tax, things like that in a given year, runs into the thousands of dollars.
And so, that would also help. Maybe we could figure out a way to have a registry system online that allows for that to happen, maybe?" Puckett said to Gilbert.
Gilbert said the city of Princeton has an online system with a business license form and other forms on its website.
Commissioner Brian Blankenship, who works for the city, said the system has had "a lot of positive feedback."
"It's scary to think that we don't know what businesses exist in the county," Puckett said. "Literally, we don't know until they put on sign on the door. And because we don't have that direct relationship, and there's not an unregistering effect. You could be a registered business on the Secretary of State's Office. You go out of business, we don't know you're not there. We might send you a tax ticket for three years or more and never even know you're not a business anymore. We've got to get a better system."
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