Bed Tax Collections Down Slightly in Flagler County

It was a mix of good news and not-so bad news for tourist development tax collections in Flagler County in the April-June quarter.

Overall, bed tax revenues were down a little more than $60,000 or 4.3% in the period, but that mirrors what is going on across Florida, according to Renee Flynt from the Flagler County Tax Collectors Office. Flynt recently briefed members of the county’s Tourist Development Council on the issue.

“Our (tourist development tax) collections were about normal,” she said. “We were up a little bit, then kind of dropped down.”

Flynt said the overall decrease was “not terrible” and is in line with what other destination marketing organizations are reporting statewide. She said at a recent Florida Tourist Development Tax conference, representatives from around the Sunshine State were seeing small decreases in collections.

“Most of the counties that were there have been seeing similar decreases to ours,” she said. “They said it’s just slowly getting back to where we were.” Flynt said some of that decrease stems from people opting to travel to other destinations.

“People are now able to travel overseas and all those things again,” she said.

A highlight of the conference was a presentation from Visit Florida, the state’s tourism development arm, showing tourism added $121.5 billion to the state’s economy in 2022 and visitor figures from 2023 topped135 million.

“It’s still a drastic amount of money that came into our Florida economy the last couple of years,” Flynt said.

Flynt also highlighted enforcement efforts by the Tax Collectors Office to ensure rental property owners are paying the tourist development tax. She said there are 15 active investigations currently underway.

“Some of those have come through anonymous reports,” she said.

Palm Coast City Councilmember Nick Klufas, who also sits on the TDC, said the city is looking for ways to deal with short-term rental issues and bed tax collections.

“I would say the city of Palm Coast, since we’re now talking about ways we can be proactive with short-term rentals. I’ve been directing not only Council members but also residents to engage with you,” he said. “I think we might have Council members reaching out to you to identify how well the software has been working to identify short-term rentals.  I also have been telling residents to use that reporting mechanism.”