Expedia, Orbitz turn to Congress for help
January 29, 2010 |
Online travel booking firms including Orbitz and Expedia are asking Congress to resolve in their favor a legal dispute with cities and counties over hotel occupancy taxes.
The online firms are seeking to add a provision to economic stimulus legislation pending in the U.S. Senate, that limits their exposure to the taxes.
The firms have battled lawsuits from cities including Houston and Louisville, Ky., claiming that the companies underpaid hotel bed taxes. The online firms have been quietly lobbying for Congress to step in since last year, but the controversy broke into the open when the provision turned up this week on a Senate Finance Committee staff draft list of possible items being considered for a stimulus bill.
Local government groups representing cities, counties and officials who control local government purse strings immediately launched a counter-attack. The groups wrote senators Wednesday that the online firms' lobbying was "nothing more than efforts to preempt state and local taxing authority."
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