Online travel hotel tax dispute continues in US

Ongoing lawsuits regarding online travel firms and hotel taxes continue in the uS, most recently in Atlanta, Georgia.

Lawyers representing the southern US city appealed a recent ruling in the state’s top court that online travel firms such as Orbitz and Travelocity are not traditional ‘innkeepers’ and thus were not responsible for millions in city tax dollars for hotel rooms booked via online websites.

The ruling came in February at a Fulton County courtroom, where the judges’ decision meant that the 7% tax rate for all rooms booked in the city of Atlanta would not be awarded to the local government. City lawyers then took the matter to the state Supreme Court.

Monday marked the fourth hearing in the past four years regarding the issue. Since then similar claims have sprung up around the United States, as many governments claiming that online travel firms are pocketing the difference in taxes between the rates charged on wholesale room prices and the actual taxes paid on the higher retail rates when consumers book rooms online.

In the case of Atlanta, the city says that the practice is costing them millions of dollars in tax revenue every year. Bill Norwood, attorney for the city of Atlanta, said that firms such as Hotels.com, Expedia and Orbitz were playing a game of semantics.