Nowhere is the hotel tax controversy raging quite as hot as it is in Clayton, Richmond Heights and St. Peters, three Missouri towns outside St. Louis that have put hotel tax increase propositions on the November ballot. If the tax increases pass, the hotels plan to sue.
According to reports in the St. Louis Business Journal, attorney David Bohm is preparing two lawsuits, one in St. Charles County and one in St. Louis County, to be filed on behalf of the owners of the Seven Gables Inn and Ritz-Carlton in Clayton, the Cheshire Inn in Richmond Heights and the Drury Inn in St. Peters.
In each case, the towns are asking for a 5 percent increase in hotel tax, which would make their taxes, which currently ranges from 12.5 percent to 15.6 percent, among the highest in the nation. While the towns contend that the proposed increases are legal, the lawsuits argue that the taxes would be unconstitutional because they exceed the taxing authority granted by the state legislature.
Both the St. Louis Hotel Association and the St. Louis CVB have gone on record in opposing the tax increases.
