HB1103 restructures how Maryland’s hotel rental tax is collected when an accommodations intermediary—such as an online booking platform or short-term rental platform—facilitates the transaction. For those bookings, the bill requires the intermediary, rather than the hotel or local accommodations provider, to collect the tax from the buyer, hold it in trust, file returns, and remit the tax to the Comptroller. The bill also creates a new statewide framework for local hotel rental taxes, including a single return for intermediaries, Comptroller-administered remittance and distribution procedures, and rules for refunds, audits, penalties, interest, and confidentiality.
The bill expands and modernizes the definitions of “accommodation,” “accommodations intermediary,” “booking transaction,” and “short-term rental unit” in the Tax-General Article, and it expressly includes short-term rental platforms within the tax collection system. It also applies the hotel rental tax to the taxable price of booking transactions facilitated by intermediaries, while preserving direct county collection for transactions not handled through an intermediary. In addition, the bill limits local flexibility by preempting conflicting county and municipal laws, ordinances, resolutions, and, beginning in 2028, certain agreements with intermediaries, and it repeals or narrows several county-specific exemption authorities.
HB1103 also amends special local provisions for Howard County, Prince George’s County, and Anne Arundel County to align those jurisdictions with the new intermediary-collection model. In those counties, the Comptroller would collect the applicable hotel tax from accommodations intermediaries and distribute revenue according to the bill’s specified formulas. The bill further bars counties and municipalities from imposing higher tax rates on short-term rental units than on other accommodations, and it requires notice to the Comptroller when local tax rates are changed.
Overall, the bill appears to reflect a policy preference for centralized state administration of hotel rental taxes on platform-facilitated bookings, with the goal of standardizing collection and reducing local variation. The available record shows no committee transcript excerpts and no recorded votes, so there is no documented public debate in the provided materials. Based on the text alone, the measure is likely to be of interest to counties, municipalities, hotels, short-term rental hosts, and online travel or booking platforms because it shifts compliance and enforcement responsibilities and may affect local revenue administration.
HB1103 would amend the Local Government Article and Tax-General Article to place accommodations intermediaries under a statewide hotel rental tax collection and remittance system administered by the Comptroller for bookings they facilitate. It would also revise local laws in Howard County, Prince George’s County, and Anne Arundel County to conform to that system, while limiting local authority to create exemptions or conflicting collection arrangements. The bill would affect counties, municipalities, hotels, short-term rental operators, and booking platforms by changing who collects the tax, where returns are filed, how revenue is distributed, and how audits and enforcement are conducted.
The provided materials do not include committee testimony or vote tallies, so there is no direct record of support or opposition from the discussion history. From the bill text, the measure appears designed to standardize tax administration and shift collection responsibilities to the Comptroller for platform-based bookings, which suggests a generally administrative and revenue-collection-focused approach rather than a highly ideological one. The absence of recorded debate in the supplied context means sentiment cannot be measured from votes, but the bill’s structure indicates an effort to simplify compliance and reduce local inconsistency.
The main points of contention likely involve state preemption versus local control, and whether online booking platforms should be made solely responsible for collecting and remitting hotel rental taxes on facilitated transactions. Counties and municipalities may object to losing authority over exemptions, collection procedures, and certain local agreements, while accommodations intermediaries may be concerned about compliance burdens, audit exposure, and liability. Short-term rental hosts and local governments could also dispute the bill’s rule barring higher tax rates on short-term rental units than on other accommodations, as well as the shift of enforcement authority to the Comptroller for intermediary-facilitated bookings.