In what can only be deemed a rather sizable victory for online travel companies, who have been beleaguered by lawsuits and audits from coast to coast at the city, county, and state level, a case in California gives the usual players joyous respite in their fight. 
Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Carolyn B. Kuhl this week overturned a February 2009 administrative ruling (Transient Occupancy Tax Cases, Case No. JCCP4472, Los Angeles County Superior Court, which is not yet publicly published) that would have provided the City of Anaheim up to $21.3 million and back transient occupancy taxes and penalties from online travel companies including the likes of Orbitz, Expedia, Priceline, Hotels.com, and Hotwire – who, according to this ruling, are “mere agents of the operator.”
The alleged back taxes, which were determined based on tax collections from 2000 – 2008, pivoted on the theory of paying tax on the difference between the retail price of a room rental vs. the wholesale price paid by the online travel company to the hotel itself, like most of the cases circulating around the country.
Obviously displeased with the ruling, the City is reviewing its options. 
Filed under: Court Cases, E-Commerce Tagged: | Anaheim, California, Expedia, Hotels.com, L.A. Country Superior Court, online hotel brokers, online travel companies, Orbitz, Priceline.com
I am a Californian who buys hotel rooms online for in-state and for when I travel for both work and pleasure. It has always bothered me that the well to do online companies get away with what you cannot possibly do in our own lives. The bottom line is that these companies are in fact taking money from my state’s cofers, which are some of the worst of any state in the country.
I also live in California, moving from France 10 years ago. It greatly disturbs me to think that our city of Anaheim and our counties are getting even less money than they are deserved and the online companies get to keep the extra money. If the country’s lawmakers cannot figure it out, why give the money to the private companies and rob the states from the services they need for the populace? Why is it all about reaping and stealing the profits for the private companies rather than the services for the social good that taxpayers all earned and deserved? When will we rise up against this hypocrisy? When?