WorldMark^® Words

Here's some additional information to go along with the rentals information I posted last week. It seems the local governments have noticed all of the private rentals that are taking place and want their tax money that those rentals should generate. Quoting from an article in the February 12, 2010 Denver Post:

"Under-the-radar renters are a growing problem for Colorado's resort communities. As ski towns wrestle with withering tax revenue and skyrocketing numbers of people hawking their homes on the Web, the push to find and tax private rentals has become a priority.

They are essentially hotels, and they need to be paying taxes like hotels," said Telluride's town manager, Frank Bell."

The article was talking about people who own homes or condos in the ski area towns, not timeshares, but with a ski season timeshare rental going for $1,200 or more per week you can bet they will be taking notice of those too. Colorado charges 12.4% tax on hotel rooms. 12.4% on a $1,200 timeshare rental is$ 148.80. A month's worth of those rentals would be generate $600 for the state and local governments.

The local governments already have people looking at advertisements for vacation rentals of homes. It's pretty easy to envision them extending that to include rentals of timeshare units. This quote from the newspaper article illustrates the effectiveness of their actions.

"Right now, most towns struggle to keep abreast of private rentals in their area. Telluride is watching about 400 private rental homes. Late last year, Steamboat Springs reached 450 private renters; today, all but about 30 have begun paying taxes. Breckenridge recently counted as many as 600 and found about 100 were not licensed or paying taxes."

So if you decide you want to make a few extra bucks by renting out a WorldMark timeshare unit be aware that the state or local governments might be watching. In addition to being liable for any damage to the unit that your renters might cause, you could also be facing a tax bill on your rental income. You can read the entire newspaper article by clicking on this link.