Ohio Supreme Court rejects PIB business’ tax-refund appeal

COLUMBUS — The Ohio Supreme Court has denied an enchantment from a Set-in-Bay enterprise that sought a $269,000 tax refund from the village for resort-location taxes compensated from January 2011 by June 2016.

Colonial Inc., which does business as Island Beverage & Beer Barrel Saloon on Place-in-Bay, initially submitted a refund claim in 2018 with state Tax Commissioner Jeff McClain.

McClain turned down the assert, as did the Ohio Board of Tax Appeals (BTA).

According to the court’s ruling issued Thursday, Colonial sought to recuperate a locally imposed vacation resort-space gross-receipts excise tax (the “resort-spot tax”), which Put-in-Bay initially enacted in 1995.

Colonial argued that beneath Ohio Revised Code 5739.101, the village must reenact the vacation resort-area tax following each and every decennial census since the village’s qualification to impose the tax relies upon on the result of every single census.

Simply because the village did not reenact its resort-region tax right after the 2010 census until July 2016, Colonial contended that it was entitled to a refund of $269,431 in resort-place taxes that it paid out from Jan. 1, 2011 by means of June 30, 2016.

In its feeling, the court disagreed with Colonial’s competition that “if a locality has not declared itself to be a ‘resort area’ based on the most the latest decennial census relative to the tax-yr at issue, no resort tax is owed.”

The court mentioned the ORC. 5739.101(A) states that “[t]he legislative authority of a municipal company, by ordinance or resolution could declare the municipal corporation to be a resort location for the applications of this section,” if specific standards are achieved, and ORC 5739.101(B) states that “the legislative authority of a municipal corporation or township, in its ordinance or resolution declaring itself a vacation resort place less than this portion, may levy a tax on the privilege of partaking in the company of producing profits in the political subdivision or delivering intrastate transportation of people or residence to or from the political subdivision.

“Notably absent from these provisions and from the other applicable Revised Code sections is any language indicating that a earlier enacted resort-region tax automatically ‘sunsets’ (i.e., ceases to be operative ) in mild of a new decennial census. Nor do the related statutes point out that the declaration of resort-area status and the imposition of a resort-space tax will have to be renewed at 10-yr intervals,” the courtroom wrote in affirming the BTA selection.

This posting at first appeared on Fremont Information-Messenger: Place-in-Bay business enterprise loses refund circumstance right before Ohio Supreme Court