Lodging tax, infrastructure tax distinct issues

Among other significant ballot items, Park County voters will decide the fate of two proposed taxes next week.

It’s important not to confuse the two.

One proposal is a 1-cent sales tax that would go toward infrastructure and maintenance costs for local governments. If passed, Park County residents and tourists will start paying 5 cents on every dollar of taxable goods.

The other measure is to renew the county’s 4 percent lodging tax that’s been in place since the 1980s. The tax is only paid by visitors who stay in local lodging establishments, like hotels and dude ranches. Since that applies to few residents who live here, the tax is almost entirely paid for by travelers, not locals.

We ask voters to consider each of the measures on their own merits — which is exactly what voters have done in past years.

Citizens overwhelmingly rejected the last proposal for an additional 1-cent tax. That was two years ago, when 63 percent of voters across the county rejected a special purpose tax for West Park Hospital.

“It’s been going for 26 years; you didn’t even know it, did you?”quipped Sherry Long of Meeteetse, secretary of the Park County Travel Council, at a meeting last week.

You likely don’t pay the lodging tax firsthand, but we all reap its benefits.