Deckard Technologies Signs Master Services Agreement with Swain County, NC, to Identify Short-term Rentals and Assist Community in Simplifying Permit Process

Rentalscape short-term rental platform provides fairness in tax equity and supports county with tax dollars from under-reported occupancy taxes

SAN DIEGO--()--Deckard Technologies, a data mining company that provides software, analytics and insights for communities to create tax equity and fairness, has signed a Master Services Agreement with Swain County, North Carolina, to assist the county in identification of properties that owe occupancy taxes for short-term rentals (STRs) and to make it easy for property hosts to comply with regulations. The monies collected are used by the Tourism Development Authority specifically to support tourism marketing efforts for the local tourism industry.

Under terms of the agreement, Deckard will use its Rentalscape platform to identify the number of STRs active in the county, identify aggregate revenue due and average daily rates charged, identify booking trends and the average number of nights booked per reservation, and list the platforms used by STR hosts. In addition, it will identify, by address, violations of STR ordinances within the county, such as properties that do not have permits, those that do not include a permit number in advertisements, or that offer occupancy that differs from their permitted time periods. To help solve these issues, Deckard will maintain application and licensing information within its user-friendly platform and make accessible a mobile application and collection portal for STR property owners and property management companies that want to bring their accounts up-to-date in real-time.

Mary Anne Baker, Executive Director for the Swain County Tourism Development Authority, says, “Our local community is dependent on tourism. We are glad we found Deckard’s offerings through our discovery process. Deckard’s software is intuitive and very simple to use, especially because it uses the same parcel identifiers we use. It should make it much more streamlined to track and for property hosts to continue to stay in compliance with the regulations.”

This beautiful, rural, tourist area, which includes the town of Bryson City and sits on the border of and within the Great Smoky Mountain National Park, requires an occupancy tax of four percent to be paid by every person or group staying overnight in Swain County hotels or lodging. The tax is also applicable to STR properties that list themselves on short-term lodging and tourism platforms, such as Airbnb or VRBO.

Deckard CEO Nick Del Pego says, “Deckard helps local communities provide essential services by ensuring more equity and fairness in regulatory compliance. Unpaid occupancy taxes create shortfalls in local revenue, which often impact, not just tourism programs or public civic centers, but also general fund-supported services such as schools, police and fire departments. Our mission is to help communities gain lost revenue, lift the quality of life for all their citizens, and sustain healthy tax bases to support smart growth.”

In addition to its short-term rental platform, Rentalscape, used by local governments to identify, track and report STR registrations, booking activities, licenses, and transient occupancy tax payments, Deckard also offers governments a proprietary PropertyInsight forensic data platform, which identifies unpaid property taxes from external and internal real estate improvements done without plans and permits on properties being used commercially.

Communities wanting additional information can contact info@deckard.com, call 858-333-7835, or visit: Deckard Technologies – Transforming Real Estate Data Into Actionable Insights; Facebook; LinkedIn.

Contacts

Beth Walsh
Clearpoint Agency
858-254-2845 mobile
beth@clearpointagency.com

Release Summary

Deckard signs agreement with Swain County, NC, to identify STR rental properties owing occupancy taxes; makes it easy for property hosts to comply.

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Contacts

Beth Walsh
Clearpoint Agency
858-254-2845 mobile
beth@clearpointagency.com