In trying to include the emerging hourly car rental businesses and offerings, the Kansas City Council of Missouri had to repeal and rewrite its rental car license fee ordinance to include hourly rental services as well.
Since taking effect on Sept. 4, after the council unanimously approved it, the revised ordinance outlines that the $4 daily rental fee passed in 2004 by Kansas City voters will now also apply to hourly rentals — also known as car sharing — but at a different rate.
The city council broke up the $4 over a 24-hour period, making the hourly rental fee 17 cents per hour or 50 cents for the total period of the rental, whichever is greater. “When the arena fee on car rentals was first established, the business model for hourly car rentals was not available in Kansas City,” states the Ordinance Fact Sheet, citing the disproportionate cost if the $4 were applied directly to the hourly car rental business model.
The revised ordinance on the $4 and hourly fee does not affect the existing fee based on annual gross receipts. The daily and hourly fee revenue from the rental agencies is paid quarterly to the city’s commissioner of revenue.