Your guide to L.A.'s Measure TT: hotel bed tax increase 10%
By Sandra McDonald0%
5/1/2026, 10:00:00 AM
Keywords: Midterm Election, California Politics
BS Summary: This article contains 17 faulty reasoning types, including Loss Aversion, Burden of Proof, and Negativity Bias, with Pessimism Bias as the most egregious example at 15.3% saturation with 76 hits. Analysis detected 667 faulty-reasoning hits from 496 analyzed words, generating a BS Score of 26.6% and a BS Rank of 10% (19,214 of 21,198 articles). This article is better (less manipulative) than 90.60% of the article peer group.
With the 2028 Olympics on the horizon, some Los Angeles officials want visitors to the city to pay more in hotel taxes.
Measure TT, which goes before city voters on the June 2 ballot, would hike the tax rate for hotel rooms from 14% to 16% until the end of 2028, staying at 15% thereafter.
In L.A., the transient occupancy tax — sometimes called a bed or hotel tax — is currently 14% of the price of hotel stays and short-term rentals under 30 days.
The tax increase proposed by Measure TT would generate $44 million annually through 2028 and $22 million annually after that, according to city estimates, with the money going toward basic services like 911 emergency response, street and sidewalk repairs, fire protection and parks.
Under Measure TT, rooms and short-term rentals booked through online companies like Airbnb, Expedia and Hotels.com also would be subject to the tax.
A related measure on the ballot would require those companies to pay taxes on the total amount a hotel charges a guest, not just the discounted rate.
The City Council voted 13-2 to put Measure TT on the ballot.
"The Olympics are an opportunity to add some jet fuel to our visitor-serving community," Councilmember Tim McOsker said at a Feb. 10 meeting.
“Two [percent] is a pretty significant jump, but it’s a jump that’s justified by the Olympics,” he said.
The city recently closed a $1-billion budget shortfall and is facing more fiscal problems as it struggles to provide basic services while taking on big-ticket items like a $2.6-billion expansion of the Convention Center.
Opponents include hotel and hospitality groups who argue that higher taxes would make it harder to fill rooms.
Nella McOsker — who is Tim McOsker's daughter — opposes the measure on behalf of the Central City Assn., a downtown L.A. advocacy organization of which she is president and chief executive.
“At a time when you’re seeing these declines in demand and losing on tax revenue year over year to the magnitude of $20 million, it just seems like a wrong time to impose more burdens on that shrinking base,” she told The Times.
L.A. could lose tourists to nearby cities like Culver City and Burbank, which had lower hotel tax rates than those proposed by Measure TT, according to an April 2025 report by the L.A.
Office of Finance.
Councilmembers Monica Rodriguez and John Lee voted against putting Measure TT on the ballot.
"You can’t ask people to pay more when you haven’t even done the work" to rein in excessive spending, Rodriguez said at the Feb. 10 meeting.
By the time the Olympics roll around, hotel and airport workers in L.A. will be making a $30 minimum wage, which was pushed by labor unions and approved by the City Council.
A coalition of hotels and airline companies opposed the wage increase, arguing that it was unsustainable and would jeopardize jobs.
Speakers
4speakers23%attributed speech383writer words
Voice mapSelect a segment to jump to its words
Selected voice
100%flagged-word coverageNella McOsker
43 attributed words38% of attributed speech59% writer coverage
Attribution is sentence-level. Pattern percentages are calculated only from words assigned to that voice.
Loading…
Loading…
Loading…
Loading…
Loading…
Loading…
Analysis
Hover over highlighted words in the article to view the associated bias or fallacy analysis.