Pinellas County to sue online travel sites to make them pay more taxes

Tax Collector Diane Nelson contends the Internet companies shortchanged Pinellas $1.4 million last year from tax money — a claim a growing list of Florida counties have made with tax revenue dwindling.

Online companies strike deals for blocks of hotel rooms and pay taxes on wholesale room rates. They sell the rooms at a higher rate but don’t pay the difference in sales and tourism taxes, saying their services as middlemen are exempt.

“It’s nothing short of fraud in my opinion. We need to pursue it,” Commissioner Susan Latvala said.

Source: St. Petersburg Times

This entry was posted on Tuesday, October 6th, 2009 and is filed under Business and Economics, Search News, Technology and Internet. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.