EDITORIAL: Whitefish resort tax is success story

Love it or hate it, you can’t dismiss the impressive impacts of the Whitefish resort tax.

The tax, which has been in effect for 20 years now, still stirs some relatively muted opposition from merchants and customers, but it’s undeniable that the face of Whitefish has been changed by the tax revenue.

Over the past two decades, $28.6 million has been collected in resort taxes. That’s from total sales of a whopping $1.5 billion in the resort city.

Where did that tax money go?

Most importantly, $16 million went into road work. People who have been around a while will remember — not too fondly — what a shock-absorber nightmare Whitefish streets used to produce for motorists. It really used to be called Pothole City.

Now, thanks to 19 separate street projects, Whitefish roads have been brought up to first-world standards.

That’s not all the resort tax has wrought.

Property owners have received $7.9 million in property-tax rebates courtesy of the resort tax, and 15 city park projects have been completed (worth $830,259) with resort-tax money.

All this because Whitefish voters and city leaders had the foresight years ago to devise an alternate revenue source.

The Whitefish resort tax is the envy of many other cities (Kalispell in particular) and even counties that would love to be able to improve their infrastructure — impacted by visitors — by levying a sales tax particularly directed at those visitors.

But the narrow restrictions in state law (resort communities with very specific populations) won’t allow those other governments to do what Whitefish has done, although it’s not for lack of trying. Pleas for local-option sales taxes from other jurisdictions frequently are heard in the Legislature — and just as frequently are rejected.

The Inter Lake has long supported giving local voters the opportunity to decide for themselves if they want to use a sales tax as part of their revenue base. It is unlikely that opportunity will present itself any time soon, but Whitefish’s example should be proof that the resort tax concept can work and truly benefit a community.