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House Bill 1724 |
House Author: Bohac |
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Effective: 9-1-13 |
Senate Sponsor: Seliger |
Previous law provided no express limitation on the right of a municipality or a county to bring suit against a person who fails to file a municipal or county hotel occupancy tax report or to pay municipal or county hotel occupancy taxes when due. House Bill 1724 amends the Tax Code to remove provisions that specifically exempted a municipality from certain limitations on such suits and to require instead that a municipality or county bring such a suit not later than the fourth anniversary of the date the tax becomes due, unless a person files a false or fraudulent report with the municipality or county with the intent to evade the applicable tax or fails to file the applicable tax report, in which case the four-year limitation period does not apply, and the municipality or county is authorized to bring suit at any time.
House Bill 1724 makes a person who fails to pay a municipal hotel occupancy tax when due liable to the municipality that imposes the tax for interest on the unpaid amount at a specified rate. The bill also authorizes a municipality that has a population of at least 190,000, no part of which is located in a county with a population of at least 150,000, to use revenue from the municipal hotel occupancy tax to conduct an audit of a person in the municipality required to collect the tax, provided that the municipality use the revenue to audit not more than one-third of the total number of those persons in any fiscal year.