An Examination of the Fiscal and Economic Impacts of Local Tourism Taxes: The Case of Florida’S Local Optional Tourism Development Tax

This study investigates the fiscal and economic impacts of local optional tourism development taxes of Florida's 67 counties during the past 7 years. This study is motivated by the need to investigate the fiscal and economic impacts of adopting local optional tourism taxes of Florida counties. In the last seven years, many counties have decided to adopt local optional tourism taxes. The major purpose of this study is an empirical examination of the fiscal and economic impacts of local optional tourism taxes on Florida counties. In doing so, this study provides with empirical evidence regarding to the impacts of local optional tourism taxes as additional tax revenue sources. A robust standard error model of a fixed effects model in a time-series cross-section data analysis is employed to examine the fiscal and economic impacts of local optional tourism development taxes on revenue growth, taxable sales of tourism related facilities, property tax burden, and the number of tourism related facilities in Florida counties over a seven-year period (FY 2004-FY 2010). In the result, the empirical findings show that the use of local optional tourism taxes improves financial status, enhances additional tax revenue sources, reduces property tax burdens, and fulfills tax policy goals – promoting local tourism. Finally, This study finds that local optional tourism taxes have fiscal and economic impacts on revenue growth, property tax burdens, and tourism industry. This means that the research findings regarding the fiscal and economic impacts of local optional tourism taxes contributes to the theories on the fiscal and economic impacts as local optional taxes.