Horry County said in a news release Friday that the amount of hospitality fee revenue collected by the county in August set a record.
The county says the taxes collected on sales for July totaled more than the amount collected in any single month since the county started collecting the fee in 1997. This record setting month follows a fiscal year when the annual revenue from this fee dropped to its lowest level in the last five years. The county collected $958,975 from the 1% hospitality fee revenue from July 2010 sales, which was 7.91% higher than the amount collected from July 2009 sales. The County collected $5,419,957 from the 1½% county-wide hospitality fee revenue from July 2010 sales, which was 11.47% higher than the amount collected from July 2009 sales.
The county collects the hospitality fee on accommodations, prepared foods, beverages and admissions. A 1½% county-wide hospitality fee is collected by Horry County, then remitted to the State Infrastructure Bank to repay loans that funded the Road Improvement and Development Effort or RIDE.
The revenue helped fund the construction of S.C. Hwy 31 and 22, as well as improvements to Hwy 544 and 501.
