John Coffelt, Editor

According to Manchester Finance Director Anthony Burrows the city could possibly recoup money in the six-figure range in unreported Hotel/Motel Tax revenues.

The city’s so-called Hotel Tax levies an occupancy tax for lodging in the Manchester City Limits. Those fees are collected by the city rather than by the state as with sales taxes.

The city hopes to correct this potential lack of oversite with a $32,000 audit to see what is actually owed to the city by local hotels.

Burrows said during the June 17 Finance Committee meeting that the last audit the city commissioned about six years ago showed $150,000 at the time in unreported funds owed to the city.

Burrows said that auditing firms do not like to do this type of audit. Burrows received only one bid for the project for $32,000-$42,000 by the respected Mauldin & Jenkins audit firm.

According to Mayor Joey Hobbs, the fund would come from the Tourism Commission’s budget, which has $30,000 allocated in for the audit.

“If we’re looking out (in the future), we need to get on a two-three-year cycle,” Hobbs said.

Burrows said that for subsequent audits, the firm would audit half the hotels in Manchester, then the alternating half for the following cycle.

“Once businesses see we are going through a more regular audit cycle their bookkeeping will probably get a little tighter,” Burrows said.

The motion to approve the expense passed the Finance Committee unanimously.

In Tourist Commission meetings prior to the June 17 meeting, members discussed the possibility of low reporting of tax revenues due to there not being any spikes in fees collected during the busy time around the Bonnaroo Music Festival.       

John has been with the Manchester Times since May 2011. John has won Tennessee Press Association awards for Best News Photo and placed in numerous other categories. John is a 1994 graduate of Tullahoma High School, a graduate of Motlow State Community College and earned a Bachelor of Arts in English from Middle Tennessee State University. He lives in Tullahoma, enjoys painting, dancing and exploring the outdoors.