The city of Bend will pursue enforcement against owners of vacation property rentals who owe a year’s worth of tourism back taxes. But the city is still trying to figure out how many of the 23 properties that potentially owe the city actually do.

“We still don’t know if all of these 23 properties owe,” Brooks Slyter, the city of Bend’s accounting and financial reporting manager, said Tuesday “Some haven’t responded. Some were a little vague with their responses. So there are a lot of different circumstances.”

The Bend City Council decided unanimously May 21 to pursue enforcement against vacation rental properties that have not paid the 9 percent tourism tax for the 2013-14 fiscal year.

After consulting with contractor MuniServices LLC and conducting an audit, the city found out this year that 84 properties might not have paid the tax. But many of the 84 either paid the tax or contacted the city about their status as a vacation rental, dropping the number of properties in question to fewer than 25. City officials have attempted to contact these to inquire about their status but haven’t received any response from 11 of the property owners.

Though the unpaid tourism tax was thought to total about $18,000, it’s now difficult to determine how much is owed, Slyter said.

“It’s hard to estimate — it could be $10 to $20 a month in room tax, to a couple of hundred depending on the property,” said Slyter. “There’s a wide range.”

Slyter said the city collected more than $4 million in room taxes for the 2013-14 fiscal year, and these taxes are generally collected through self-reporting by each property owner on a monthly basis. The city began investigating the number of potentially delinquent properties more than a year ago .

Carolyn Eagan, the city’s business advocate, said that when the process began, the city was under the impression that a huge number of rental properties were not paying this tax. In reality, the number is quite small, Eagan said.

When the city began contacting property owners about whether they owed taxes, it also sent a survey about the tourism tax.

“We discovered from surveying that most were new to the market, if they were even a vacation rental at all, and many weren’t aware of the room tax code,” Slyter said.

City Councilor Sally Russell said Friday that because the vacation rental business lends itself to a high turnover rate, it’s difficult to keep track of who owes the city. That’s one of the reasons the council decided to pursue only one year’s worth of taxes as opposed to multiple years.

“People get in and out of the business a lot, so it can be difficult to monitor,” Russell said. “They might get into it and find out it’s too much work, but not realize there are regulations that go with it.”

Slyter said the city will continue attempts to contact the property owners, and it plans to send another round of letters this month. Those who continue to ignore the city or who decide not to pay will face not only the amount of tax they owe, but also a 10 percent penalty and escalating fines, Slyter said.

The owners of several of the properties listed as possibly owing tourism back taxes were contacted by The Bulletin but declined to comment.

Realizing that some property owners might not be aware of the tax, Slyter said the city has started to make more of an effort to alert those about the tourism tax.

Despite the potential for a misunderstanding, Russell said that the owners of the properties owing this tax should have known what was required of them when they decided to get into the business.

“If you’re running a vacation rental, you need to be clear about what the regulations are and what your obligations are, and you need to be meeting those obligations,” Russell said. “That was certainly very clear to the council. Those rules are in place for a reason.”

— Reporter: 541-383-0354, mkehoe@bendbulletin.com.