Hotels can have a hard time scoring fair tax assessments given their complicated revenue streams. And now that the lodging business is booming, some experts predict, tax bills will rise, too—and not always justly.
“Assessors just make mistakes, and they don’t recognize that some of the hotels, particularly in secondary markets, aren’t doing as well as their brethren in Midtown Manhattan or Boston,” said Frank E. Ferruggia, a tax partner with McCarter & English LLP.
Or they don’t realize that older properties may not be bustling the way newer competitors are, as happened in a tax appeal case that Ferruggia won for the Boston Park Plaza’s owners last year.
So if a hotel client gets hit hard on its latest assessment, keep these guidelines in mind.
6.20.2014