CPA Allen Alternative. A quiet month still files.
Hotel occupancy tax in Allen is due on the 20th even when the rooms were empty.
Ask about the hotel.
Empty rooms are not an empty return
A short term rental or a hotel in Allen can have a bleak month and still owe a filing. The city hotel occupancy tax is 7 percent, on top of the state hotel tax of 6 percent. The city return is due on the 20th of the next month even when no tax is owed. We would rather file a true zero than explain a missing month after a letter arrives. Quiet is allowed. Silence is not.
Owners tell us they skipped a slow January because it felt silly to report nothing. The city's own page treats that skip as late, not as common sense. Late hotel tax is 5 percent of the tax in the first 30 days, 10 percent from day 31 through day 90, and 15 percent after a fiscal quarter, plus 12 percent annual interest. On a zero month the penalty math may be small. On the next full month, a habit of skipping is how a letter gets long.
Two taxes, two names
Guests experience one stay. The books have to experience two hotel taxes plus the ordinary sales tax questions on anything that was not the room itself. A breakfast, a late checkout fee, a pet fee, or a retail item in the lobby may not follow the occupancy tax. We separate the room revenue from the rest before anyone files. A single income account called rooms and other is how those lines get mixed, and mixed lines are how a 7 percent tax gets applied to a dollar that never should have worn it.
The state piece and the city piece should be visible liabilities, not a plug figure at filing time. When the bank deposit from the card processor arrives net of fees, we still gross up the room revenue. The fee is an expense. The tax is a liability. The net deposit is just the cash. Three facts, three postings. It feels slow the first month and obvious every month after.
A good month needs the same skeleton
Fall in Allen can fill rooms that sat empty in August. A tournament weekend or a night when the event center is sold out changes the cash. It does not change the skeleton of the return. The 20th is the 20th. We keep the same working paper in a full month and in a zero month so the person who files is not inventing a new spreadsheet under pressure. You should be able to see taxable room revenue, exempt stays if any, the city 7 percent, and the state 6 percent without calling us to translate.
We also look at marketplace and platform stays. If a platform collected and remitted one of the taxes, the books need to say which one, and the city return needs to follow the city's instructions for that situation. We will not assume the platform did the city's work. We will read the platform report beside the city's form. If they disagree, the disagreement is the close, not a footnote.
What this is not
We do not run the guest counter, and we do not hold your guest records. You keep the folios and the decision about rates. We keep the month and the two hotel taxes tied to that month. Payroll for a small staff, if you have one, is set up on your provider and then left in your hands. A signed cover on financial statements is outside this practice. The occupations sections and the rest of that fence are written on the disclosures page. Here the subject stays small. Even a quiet month produces a filing.
If you are behind by several 20ths, say so on the first call. We will talk about catching the missing months in order, not about a magical current month that skips the gap. Penalty relief is a later conversation, and it wants a real filing history under it. Hope is not a filing.
Was the month empty
.Say whether the rooms were full, empty, or mixed, and whether the 20th has been filed.
You will be talking to the Steven Palmieri practice.