Mineola, NY- Nassau County Comptroller George Maragos released his audit of NYCB Theatre in Westbury, managed by Westbury Music Fair/Live Nation, and found that it owes the County $548,198 in ticket taxes and penalties for the period of January 1, 2012 to September 30, 2014. This amount includes surcharge taxes on 214,241 seats sold during the audit period. The Comptroller is urging the County to take all necessary steps to collect the money owed plus penalties and interest allowed under law.
“The County needs to do a better job of monitoring and collecting ticket taxes,” said Comptroller George Maragos. “This is another example of large organizations that feel there are no consequences for not paying their taxes. We will work with the County to ensure the money owed is paid back in full, including money owed before and after the scope of our audit.”
Westbury Music Fair LLC is required to pay Nassau County an Entertainment Surcharge Tax of $1.50 per seat sold for events at the NYCB Theatre in Westbury due to the Theatre having a permanent seating capacity of over 2,500 seats. In a response to the County, NYCB Theatre in Westbury said they had “curtain restricted shows” which blocked off seats and restricted the Theatre to under 2,500 seats which they claim entitled them to an exemption from the tax. Our audit found that if any structure has a permanent seating capacity over the seating limit they must pay the ticket tax regardless of whether or not there were “curtain restricted shows”.
The Comptroller’s Office recommends that Westbury Music Fair LLC remit the amount owed of $548,198 to the County in connection with the curtain restricted events and the unreported ticket sales, and report and remit taxes on tickets sold to any curtain restricted events. Additionally, the Comptroller asks that the Westbury Music Fair LLC voluntarily remit ticket surcharges dating prior to the audit as well as current taxes for 2015.
