Panoramic aerial view of the beautiful Ponce de Leon Lighthouse in Daytona, Florida
Volusia, Flagler and St. Johns counties have each implemented the TDT, which came to be known colloquially as the“ bed tax” or“ heads-in-beds tax.”
The TDT is levied by county governments on accommodations such as hotels, condominiums, singlefamily homes, Airbnbs, boats permanently affixed to a dock and not operated on water by the tenant, mobile homes and other living quarters rented for six months or less.
The TDT, which is charged in addition to Florida’ s state sales and use tax, is paid by guests at the time of the rental payment. The owners or operators of rental facilities are responsible for collecting the tax from guests and remitting it to the appropriate county authority, usually the tax collector’ s office or the Florida Department of Revenue.
Those funds are disbursed to county Tourism Development Councils( TDCs), which are appointed by county councils and typically include the county chair, elected officials from municipalities in the county, owner / operators of tourist accommodations subject to the bed tax, and other people in the tourism industry.
TDCs oversee the allocation of tourism tax revenues to Convention and Visitors Bureaus( CVBs), and act as a governing or advisory board that approves a CVB’ s budget and spending. Florida CVBs, which handle the marketing and development of tourism initiatives, may
or may not be government organizations.
Aerial view of the castle of San Marcos National Monument in St. Augustine, the oldest town in the US
The Flagler County Tourism Development Office, known as Palm Coast and the Flagler Beaches( PCFB), is a department under the Flagler County Board of County Commissioners.
Georgia Turner, Executive Director of the West Volusia Tourism Advertising Authority, noted Volusia County has three tourism entities, which also include the Daytona Beach Convention and Visitors Bureau and the Southeast Volusia Advertising Authority.
Those three Volusia tourism groups“ are what they call quasigovernmental,” Turner said.“ We are not officially part of the county, but we interact with the county a lot.”
The St. Johns County Visitors and Convention Bureau, also known
Georgia Turner
as St. Augustine, Ponte Vedra & the Beaches, is not a government entity, but it operates as the official marketing organization for St. Johns County tourism. According to Lori Campbell Baker, Executive
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