(A) The owner or owners of each hotel or motel within the city shall file tax returns showing tax receipts received with respect to each hotel and motel each month on forms prescribed by the City Comptroller. The returns shall be due on or before the twentieth day of the calendar month succeeding the end of the monthly filing period and the returns shall indicate when the return is to be filed, i.e., the return for January is due on or before February 20.
(B) At the time of filing tax returns, the owner shall pay to the City Comptroller all taxes due for the period to which the tax return applies; provided that the owner shall be entitled to retain an amount equal to 3% of the tax collected by the owner as compensation for collecting and remitting the tax herein imposed.
(C) If for any reason any tax is not paid when due, a penalty at the rate of 3% per 30-day period, or portion thereof, from the day of delinquency shall be added and collected.
(D) The City Comptroller shall have the power to determine whether the owner shall file his or her returns on the receipts basis (reporting, for the return period, only those receipts received during the return period), or the gross billing basis (reporting, for the return period, all rentals billed during the return period, whether collected during the return period or not). If the owner is allowed to file his or her return on the gross billing basis, if a billing later turns out to be a bad debt, and is charged off on the operator’s book as a bad debt for federal income tax purposes, the owner may take a deduction for the bad debt on his or her hotel or motel room tax return to the city. If the owner, after taking the bad debt deduction, should later realize a recovery thereon, he or she shall report and pay tax on the amount of the recovery when filing his or her return for the return period in which the recovery occurs.
(E) Except as provided in this section, all information received by the Comptroller from returns filed under this subchapter, or from any investigation conducted under the provisions of this subchapter, shall be confidential, except for official purposes with the Accounts and Finances Department or pursuant to official procedures for collection of any state tax or enforcement of any civil or criminal penalty or sanction imposed by this subchapter. Nothing contained in this subchapter shall prevent the Comptroller from publishing or making available to the public the names and addresses of persons filing returns under this subchapter and the number of rooms covered in the return, or from publishing or making available reasonable statistics concerning the operation of the tax wherein the contents of returns are grouped into aggregates in such a way that the information contained in any individual return shall not be disclosed. The Comptroller may make available to the Secretary of the Treasury of the United States, or a proper official of the state or a delegate of any other state imposing a tax upon a motel or hotel room, for exclusively official purposes, information received by the Comptroller in the administration of this subchapter.
(1990 Code, § 27-37) (Ord. 77-549, passed 11-7-1977; Ord. 77-561, passed 1-3-1978; Ord. 2000-1998, passed 12-18-2000)