A wave of taxes may soon crash on Lake County residents who are peddling their homes as waterfront retreats.
Speros Batistatos, president and CEO of the South Shore Convention and Visitors Authority, said this week he will ask the county treasurer and auditor to authorize him to collect the state's 5 percent innkeeper tax from several such homes now listed with a home rental website.
"I stumbled on it coincidentally," said Batistatos, noting he learned of the listings on Vacation Rental by Owner, or VRBO.com, after a central Illinois man spoke to him about renting a second home in Gary's Miller Beach area for hundreds of dollars a week.
"We found 14 in Miller and three in Cedar Lake so far," he said.
Batistatos said there appears to be dozens of more such listings for homes in Porter and LaPorte counties.
...
Either Lake Treasurer John Petalas or Auditor Peggy Katona could give Batistatos permission to pursue taxes from the rental homes when the three meet today. They signed an agreement earlier this year to let the tourism authority assist their overburdened offices with innkeeper tax collections.
Petalas said Tuesday he wants to hear what evidence Batistatos has gathered.
"There are people who have condos on the lake and may rent them out over the summer for a week here and a week there," Petalas said. "I don't think that constitutes a hotel."
Batistatos said he believes the law is more strict than that.
"Even if you rented your house once a year for the (South Shore) Air Show, you owe the tax," he said. "A lot of people say, 'It's my house, and I can do what I want.' But the law is very specific about people furnishing homes for fewer than 30 days."
Batistatos said he only wants to target people who advertise their homes for rent.
"I don't believe there was any intentional malfeasance," he said. "They just didn't know they were in the hotel business. That's alright, but everything has got to be paid."
