111.16 Administration | Nehalem City Code

111.16 Administration.

(A) Records required from operators; form. Every operator shall keep guest records of room sales and accounting books and records of the room sales. The operator shall retain all records for a period of three years and six months after they come into being. An adequate system of accounting records of room sales should typically include, but are not limited to:

(1) Registration cards;

(2) Daily and/or monthly deposit and room rental summaries;

(3) Adjustment to summaries including, but not limited to, refunds, exempt rent and monthly rent;

(4) Copies of submitted transient lodgings tax worksheets, provided by the city, showing computations for quarterly reports; and

(5) Copies of submitted transient lodgings tax general ledger records, provided by the city, relating to gross and net rental receipts on a quarterly basis.

(1) Examinations, investigations. The City Manager, or any person authorized in writing by him or her, may examine during normal business hours the books, papers and accounting records relating to room sales of any operator, after notification to the operator liable for the tax, and may investigate the business of the operator in order to verify the accuracy of any return made, or if no return is made by the operator, to ascertain and determine the amount required to be paid.

(2) Failure to maintain records. Any operator who fails to maintain records adequate to allow performance of a compliance review to verify accuracy shall pay a penalty in the amount of up to $25 per room per day for each day the records of the hotel are found to be inadequate by the City Manager. The penalty imposed by the City Manager may be appealed to the City Council by filing notice of appeal within ten days after the serving or the mailing of the notice of the imposition of penalty.

(C) Confidential character of information obtained; disclosure unlawful. It shall be unlawful for the City Manager or any person having an administrative or clerical duty under the provisions of this chapter to make known in any manner whatever the business affairs, operations or information obtained by an investigation of records and equipment of any person required to obtain a transient occupancy registration certificate, or pay a transient occupancy tax, or any other person visited or examined in the discharge of official duty, or the amount or source of income, profits, losses, expenditures or any particular thereof, set forth in any statement or application, or to permit any statement or application, or copy of either, or any book containing any abstract or particulars thereof to be seen or examined by any person; provided that, nothing in this division (C) shall be construed to prevent:

(1) The disclosure to, or the examination of records and equipment to another city official, employee or agent for collection of taxes for the sole purpose of administering or enforcing any provisions of this chapter, or collecting taxes imposed hereunder;

(2) The disclosure, after the filing of a written request to that effect, to the taxpayer himself or herself, receivers, trustees, executors, administrators, assignees and guarantors, if directly interested, of information as to any paid tax, any unpaid tax or amount of tax required to be collected, or interest and penalties; further provided, however, that, the City Attorney when, in his or her opinion, the public interest would suffer thereby;

(3) The disclosure of the names and addresses of any persons to whom transient occupancy registration certificates have been issued; and

(4) The disclosure of general statistics regarding taxes collected or business done within the city. (Ord. 2013-02, passed 09/9/2013)

Penalty, see § 111.99