To steal a line from the Bachman Turner Overdrive song, let it be a warning of what is planned for this next Lansing legislative session. Rumors are flying that the party in power, with its weak majority firmly established again with the APR special election, has 500 bills that it will jam through to continue the erosion of your liberty and freedom.
Here the start with a bill to nearly double the tax on short term leases for rental property. Nothing improves business like increasing tax burden and record keeping.
From the MI Capitol Confidential. A proposal in the Michigan Legislature would impose statewide regulations on short-term rental properties and increase their taxes. At least one local official says it’s unnecessary and would subject those properties to usurious tax rates. The Short Term Rental Regulation Act is one of several items in a package of bills, HB 5437-5446. Stays at short-term rental properties, as well as at hotel and motel rooms, are currently subject to a 6% use tax. If House Bill 5438 were passed, short-term rentals would also be subject to an additional 5% tax. Various state laws allow for an extra tax on commercial lodging establishments in specific municipalities, but not statewide. The House Fiscal Agency estimates that an additional 5% tax would cost rental owners and their guests $35 million to $70 million each year. The tax would apply to rooms rented for more than 14 days a year. Up to $1 million of the tax revenue collected would go to the Department of Licensing and Regulatory Affairs, or LARA. The rest would go to local governments. HB 5438 would also require short-term rental owners to register with LARA , which would create and maintain a database of short-term rentals. The bill also would impose various safety and disclosure requirements statewide. Booking platforms such as VRBO would have to pay an annual registration fee of up to $50,000.
The party in power, specifically the Executive branch, destroyed small business during the scamdemic under the guise of public safety. Now with the help of the legislative branch, they want to continue that practice with more business crushing bureaucracy.
Only you, the voter, can bring a stop to this. You can try calling those in office and telling them to back down. Good luck with that. The only solution is to tear away their slim majority and put Lansing back in balance during the upcoming primary and general election. All the rubber stampers for the state crushing agenda must be replaced.
It's an urgent call to action to save the state. Heed that call and act accordingly. Get off your couch, grab your family and friends and get to the polls. If someone says that they are not political, tell them that those in Lansing will affect their lives 24/7, from cradle to grave if they don't help put the right people in office. Choosing not to get involved means you are dooming yourselves, your children, and their children to the continued Kalifornication of MI. AND THAT, is not a good thing by any measure.