State lawmakers should support tighter fiscal oversight of Visit Annapolis

Unlike most taxes, you don’t often hear fiscal conservatives raise concerns about the levy on hotel rooms. Those who actually pay the taxes tend, in the main, not to be residents of the taxing jurisdiction and are voiceless in expressing a feeling about the fairness of this particular taxation. Hotels and other hospitality businesses that pay Anne Arundel County’s room tax pass them on to customers, spelling them out in the bill. Those businesses might argue that hotel taxes make a destination less competitive compared to other places with lower hotel taxes, but that’s about the amount of discussion on the subject.