SUSSEX COUNTY, Del. - As the old saying goes, nothing is certain but death and taxes, and now Sussex County is considering a new method to collect more of the latter. The county is considering a 3 percent tax on short-term rentals on Tuesday.
If the council moves forward with this idea it would place a 3 percent tax on short-term rentals in unincorporated areas, in other words, areas that are not within city or town limits throughout Sussex County.
According to the state a short-term rental counts as any rental with a stay of 31 nights or less. Sussex County already has a 3% lodging tax for hotels and motels. So far that has been a profitable program, generating around $3.4 million dollars since its inception in 2020.
As is the case with any suggestion of a tax increase, some people are unhappy about it. Adriane Gallagher, the president of the Sussex County Association of Realtors thinks that the additional 3 percent charge will hurt the local economy.
“Any type of short-term rental is not only bringing in people to stay in a vacation home but they’re also going out to restaurants, they’re using our local services,” she said. “There’s a cumulative impact when you take people away from our area, and having extra taxes could potentially do that.”
These short-term rentals are already taxed by the state at a rate of 4.5 percent and this additional county charge would bump that number up higher.
Tuesday the Sussex County Counsel will consider this new proposal and then they will decide whether to advance to the next step or to scuttle it all together.