Customers pay hotel-motel tax, not businesses

To the editor:

The story in Saturday's paper regarding the fate of Cape Girardeau's hotel-restaurant tax and the River Campus project helped explain a complicated issue. But the story may have perpetuated a misconception about who actually pays the tax.

Hotels, restaurants and other businesses don't pay these taxes the way you and I pay taxes. Actually, they collect taxes from their customers and remit those taxes to the Missouri Department of Revenue, which in turn distributes the funds to the appropriate state, county and municipal governments. So hotels and restaurants won't be paying for the River Campus. Their customers will.

STEVE ROBERTSON

Cape Girardeau