Hawaii County Mayor Roth released the following statement today regarding Governor Ige’s intent to veto the the Transient Accommodation Tax Measure:
“We are very pleased with the Governor’s intent to veto HB 862, which would create an additional 3% Transient Accommodation Tax (TAT) on our hotel industry and potentially price our locals out of staycations,” said Mayor Roth. “TAT was originally established to provide dedicated funding to allow visitor spending to mitigate visitor impacts on our community, but has instead, for the last few years, been a failsafe funding source for statewide issues. The roughly $19 million TAT that we collect, as a county, every year helps us maintain county infrastructure, beach parks, community centers, gymnasiums, etc. As we begin to emerge from the COVID-19 pandemic, we cannot afford to put further strain on our hospitality industry, one of the largest employers in the state, by allowing them to continually foot the bill. We need to remember that visitors are not the only ones who use our hotels and facilities, and therefore it would not be only the visitors to suffer from the increased tax. We must do a better job of thinking outside the box to address our many budgetary issues. Otherwise, we will just keep kicking the can down the road.”