Latest Tax Collector’s Office reports show that revenue in June ended up surpassing figure for June 2024
For the fourth month in a row, Sarasota County’s Tourist Development Tax — or, “bed tax” — revenue was higher than it was for the corresponding month in the prior fiscal year.
In July, the funds added up to $3,549,832.15, as shown in the latest reports issued by Sarasota County Tax Collector Mike Moran and his staff. That figure is up by $45,359.64 — or nearly 1.3% — compared to the total of $3,504,472.51 recorded for July 2024, the reports note.
Through July — with two months of reports remaining for this fiscal year — the amount of Tourist Development Tax (TDT) turned over to the Tax Collector’s Office was $42,671,614.04, the reports say. That is $1,186,928.61 less than the amount the office collected through July 2024, the data show.
When the July 2024 reports initially were released, they put the total revenue brought in through that month at $43,736,532.57. Thus, the figure through July of this year is approximately 2.5% lower. (Figures can change from month to month in the TDT reports, thanks to audits and other enforcement action, the staff of the Tax Collector’s Office has explained.)
The total Tourist Development Tax revenue collected in the 2024 fiscal year — which ended on Sept. 30, 2024 — was $48,471,130.31, the latest data note. That compares to the $50,482,956.36 collected in the 2023 fiscal year.
The 6% bed tax is charged on rentals of accommodations for six months or less time. A county ordinance governs how the funds are spent. Among the uses are beach maintenance and renourishment, marketing of the county to tourists, and upkeep of the two Major League Baseball Spring Training stadiums, in Sarasota and Wellen Park.
Among other data in the new reports, the total amount of money collected through July by Airbnb hosts in the county was $6,048,799.33. That is down close to 4.6%, compared to the $6,341,868.54 noted in the July 2024 TDT data.
Altogether, as of the end of July, rentals of accommodations through online platforms — including HomeAway.com and TripAdvisor, and all of their subsidiaries — made up 21.14% of the collections, the latest data show.
Through the same period of the 2024 fiscal year, the figure was 21.54%.
Additionally, the City of Sarasota and Siesta Key vie each year to “win” the title of having accounted for the greatest portion of the TDT revenue. Through July, the city was in the lead, with 24.03% of the funds. Siesta hosts were the source of 22.9% of the money, the new reports say.
At the same time last year, Siesta had accounted for 27.51% of the money, with the city’s portion put at 24.66%.
Siesta ended up prevailing at the end of the 2024 fiscal year, though the city was the proverbial victor for the prior two fiscal years.
Staff of the Tax Collector’s Office has pointed out that many accommodations on Siesta Key were unusable for months after the storm surges of Hurricanes Helene and Milton wrought major damage across the island in the fall of 2024. As a result, Siesta Key has been playing a figurative game of “catch-up” with the city this fiscal year in terms of bed tax collections.
Additionally, the new reports show that, instead of a month-over-month decrease for June, the revenue actually was higher this June than in June 2024. The initial data for June showed a drop of $24,032.01. However, the latest reports say that accommodation hosts collected $53,743.78 more than they did in June 2024.
Along with the aforementioned audits and other enforcement actions, the Tax Collector’s Office has staff members dedicated to searching for vacation rental properties whose owners have not been paying the bed tax. When those are discovered, the owners have to pay what they should have turned over to the Tax Collector’s office each month for the entire time they have been engaged in those vacation rentals.
Yet another detail of the new reports is that the month-over-month decrease for March has been lowered. The previous data put the gap at $406,822.46. The latest data show the drop was $396,473.10.
Complementing the Tax Collector’s Office reports, Visit Sarasota County, the county’s marketing organization, contracts with a Tallahassee firm, Downs & St. Germain Research, to gather different monthly data related to tourism.
The report for July says that the number of visitors in the county was down about 4.1%, compared to the total for July 2024. The number for this July was 143,700; in July 2024, 149,800.
The following are the other figures that Visit Sarasota County released for July:
- Visitor direct expenditures added up to $132,395,200, which was lower by approximately 6.1%, compared to the $141,012,900 figure for July 2024.
- The lodging occupancy was 59.8% ,compared to 58.8% in July 2024.
- The average room rate was $284.31, which was up about 8.6%, compared to the July 2024 average of $260.48.
- The number of room nights sold — 242,300 — was down about 2%, compared to the Juily 2024 tally of 247,100.