House Bill 161 Summary

• Restructures hotel and motel occupancy tax provisions, consolidating multiple tax authorities into fewer categories based on population thresholds and geographic criteria.

• Allows cities and counties with over 350 hotel and motel rooms, county seats, and counties of the first classification to impose up to 5% tax on transient guest room charges for convention and visitors bureau funding, subject to voter approval.

• Establishes a new sales tax option for public library districts in specified counties (up to 0.5% on retail sales) to fund library operations and maintenance, subject to voter approval.

• Modifies public safety sales tax provisions for five specifically identified cities, allowing up to 0.5% sales tax for police, fire, and emergency services.

• Clarifies that cities and counties cannot impose overlapping hotel occupancy taxes and preserves existing taxes that were in effect as of August 28, 2011.