According to Daniel Yoon, analyst for J.P. Morgan, "Resort fees are subject to a [lodging] tax rate of 12%. That said, one must be careful reading the fine print since sometimes the fee is listed post-tax."
Clark County spokesman Dan Kulin confirms this. "Any of those fees or charges that a private company would put on, we would tax those." The Nevada Department of Taxation confirmed that any mandatory fee is taxable, adding that sales tax is not charged on hotel rooms (and thus not on resort fees either).
If casino-resorts are trying to use resort fees to puff up their average daily rate (ADR), not everyone’s biting. Writes Yoon, "We do not count [resort fees] towards our ADR calculations though we note that they effectively act like a room-rate increase (though another way to think of it is more like a mandatory out-of-room spend)."
Whatever the case, the gradual introduction of resort fees by MGM Mirage, followed by Wynn Resorts, appears to be helping Clark County’s tax collections. According to the Las Vegas Convention & Visitors Authority, room-tax revenues have been up the last three months, including a 4% increase in April, despite a lower occupancy rate.
