Bethel council to hear plan for statewide commission to collect taxes on platform sales

The Bethel City Council holds a public hearing Tuesday on an ordinance that would have the Alaska Remote Seller Sales Tax Commission administer, collect and enforce the city's sales tax and bed tax on sales made through marketplace facilitators.

Marketplace facilitators are businesses that sell on behalf of other sellers. The ordinance names accommodation intermediaries, delivery network companies and marketplaces that provide travel agency services. Any goods, services or rentals they sell with a point of delivery in Bethel would count as remote sales, and the city's definition of seller would include a marketplace facilitator selling for another seller.

The commission coordinates sales tax collection on remote sales into Alaska communities. Bethel adopted the commission's uniform remote seller tax code in 2020, and on July 28 the council voted 6-0 to replace it with an updated version reflecting March 31 amendments to the code. No one spoke at that hearing. The ordinance up Tuesday says the new definitions are needed to clarify terms in that code. Beyond adding them, it delegates collection on marketplace facilitator sales to the commission.

Bethel budgets about $1.4 million from remote seller sales tax this fiscal year and $375,000 from bed tax, according to the Finance Committee's Oct. 26 agenda packet. For July, remote sellers remitted $114,126 in sales tax, including penalty and interest, and local sellers paid $622,864 in sales tax and $126,201 in bed tax, according to the finance department's September report.

The council introduced the ordinance Oct. 13. It would take effect when passed.