AG opinion: Ohio townships have broad authority to administer lodging taxes

Ohio townships largely have the authority to administer lodging taxes under state law, and such taxes remain enforceable even if officials don’t adopt written regulations governing how the taxes are administered.

Attorney General Andy Wilson reached his conclusion in a July 24 opinion, issued in response to a series of questions asked by Vinton County Prosecuting Attorney William Archer.

Brown Township in Vinton County levied a 3% excise tax on lodging sometime before 2001. In September 2001, township trustees moved to increase the “excise bedding tax received from Lake Hope State Park” to 6%.

Trustees passed the motion orally, and a “resolution was not recorded in a separate written document.”

On December 12, 2001, trustees voted to expand the definition of “hotel” under the lodging tax to include establishments with one or more units. They also did so without “a separate written document.”

Wilson concluded that trustees had “ample statutory authority” to alter the definition of “hotel” as it relates to the lodging tax and that the township’s resolution is “not required to identify the statutory authority upon which it relies.” Additionally, the tax does “not become invalid merely because it identifies a specific establishment to which the tax may apply.”

Wilson said he did not find “any reason to invalidate the resolution because it references one property to which the tax may apply.”

“The trustees did not specifically raise the tax on Lake Hope State Park; rather, they raised the tax throughout the township and noted that doing so would increase revenues received from the park,” Wilson wrote. “While the wording may have been inartful, it does not render the resolution invalid.”

Wilson concluded that a tax is enforceable even without written regulations governing “the administration and allocation of the tax.”

“The only regulations that must be established are those the township determines are necessary,” Wilson said in the opinion.

Under Ohio law, “the resolution or ordinance may apply to an existing excise lodging tax, provided that it expressly states so, but it may not impose that tax retroactively on lodging transactions involving lodging that was not previously covered,” Wilson concluded. “The Brown Township Trustees therefore had ample statutory authority to revise the definition of ‘hotel’ for purposes of its lodging tax, specifically from an establishment having five or more rooms for guests to include an establishment with one or more guest rooms.”