House committee advances bills requiring hotels and short-term rentals to share occupancy data with counties

The House Tourism, Recreation and Economic Development Committee on a voice vote reported two companion bills that would require hotels, short-term rental operators and booking agents to share occupancy and rental-transaction information with county governments.

Josh, a committee staff member, explained that House Bill 2082 (Printer's No. 2671) and House Bill 2083 (Printer's No. 2672) would require the transmission of occupancy and transaction data to counties and would create a uniform reporting form for tax- and fee-related remittances. "House bill 2082 requires hotels, short term rental operators, and booking agents to share information on occupancy and rental transactions with counties," Josh said. He described Amendment A03954 to HB2083 and Amendment A03784 to HB2082, which remove the requirement to provide the name of the hotel, short-term rental operator or booking agent in documentation submitted to the counties and require counties to post ordinances and reporting forms enacted through the legislation on their publicly accessible websites.

Chairwoman Daly, who introduced background remarks for the measure, said the bills respond to challenges faced by smaller counties in reconciling bulk remittances. "It really impacts the smaller counties," she said, describing how county treasurers and controllers told lawmakers they could not audit or reconcile checks when payments arrived as undifferentiated bulk amounts. Daly said the bills were developed with input from the Pennsylvania County Comptrollers Association and local officials and are intended to help county auditors and treasurers better track receipts.

Committee members offered no objections to the amendments, and committee leadership announced there were no negative votes; both amendments were adopted and the bills were reported as amended. The amendment to HB2083 additionally extended the bill's coverage to include 2nd and 2A class counties, where the original bill would have applied only to 3rd through 8th class counties.

The committee did not record a roll-call vote in the transcript; the clerk noted there were no negative votes and the measures were reported out. No public testimony, formal dissent or substantive debate on fiscal impacts was recorded in the transcript.

Next steps: the bills were reported from the committee as amended and will proceed through the legislative process for further consideration by the full House.