Support Whitefish resort tax plan

Whitefish voters will decide next week whether to extend the city's 2-percent resort tax through 2025.

Given the fact that the ballot measure doesn't ask for a tax increase or change the uses of the resort tax, the proposal at hand seems like the most benign way to squeeze the most out of a tax that has been a success story for Whitefish.

With local-option taxes looming on the legislative horizon, the Whitefish City Council decided now is the time to ask voters to OK a nine-year extension of the tax. City Manager Gary Marks has noted that local-option tax bills have consistently contained provisions that would forbid Whitefish from renewing its resort tax when it expires in 2016, and instead would limit Whitefish voters at that time to accepting or rejecting a local-option tax.

Marks sees two potential problems with a local-option tax - it would likely be 3 or 4 percent and could have revenue-sharing obligations that would take money from Whitefish coffers and funnel it to the state or other local governments without such a tax.

Whitefish's 2-percent "luxury" tax was plenty controversial when it was approved by voters in 1995. There are some business owners who continue to feel the tax puts an unfair burden on the retail community. They favor a tiered structure that would tax retail items less than lodging or restaurant fare. But that's a ballot issue for another day.

Through the years, even naysayers have come to acknowledge the positive effects of the 2-percent tax. Resort-tax collections have pumped $5.5 million into street and infrastructure improvements and have reduced Whitefish property taxes by $2.1 million. Because of the tax rebate, Whitefish boasts the lowest mill rate of Montana's 13 largest cities.

The nine-year extension would allow the city to take in another $10.5 million for street reconstruction and an additional $809,000 for bike paths and park improvements. It likewise offers more property-tax relief, to the tune of $4 million to $6.5 million in tax rebates.

If Whitefish voters consider those numbers, they'll realize that extending the resort tax for another nine years is the right thing to do.

And then when we come to the legislative session, we can look at the benefits of a local-option tax without having to worry about protecting Whitefish.

Certainly, communities like Kalispell that are visited by hundreds of thousands of tourists each year would be able to benefit from a local-option tax. Possibly next year, the Legislature will give other municipalities besides Whitefish the opportunity to find a revenue solution that benefits local taxpayers even more than it costs them.