The hotly debated “boat tax” issue was again touched on at this month’s meeting of the county’s fiscal court with Judge/Executive Gary Robertson saying the issue was effectively out of the hands of local government following a meeting with a representative with the state’s department of revenue.

William Lawson, with the department of revenue, met with Robertson two weeks ago and told him he would attend the March 12 meeting of the fiscal court. Robertson said while in the area last Thursday, Lawson visited several local marinas before heading back to Frankfort.

Robertson said that if anyone had any questions on the issue to contact PVA Tim Popplewell.

Robertson said that Popplewell was willing to field calls on the topic and talk to folks about it.

“There is nothing the court can do on the issue,” Robertson said. “I’ve said this the whole time. It is a KRS and its left up to the department of revenue and our local PVA office.”

Robertson said that the department of revenue had been contacted by State Auditor Adam Edelen several months ago about enforcing this boat tax around the state and revenue officials have already visited some marinas in western and northern Kentucky before setting their sights here.

Some county officials have expressed concern that enforcement of the tax would encourage boat owners to relocate to marinas outside of the county creating a blow to local tourism.

There are less than 200 boats documented on property tax records in the county that generates annual tax revenues to the fiscal court of around $20,000 and around $60,000 to the local school district, according to public records.

These figures would likely increase by into the hundreds of thousands of dollars if the state law was enforced.

Several folks attended the meeting solely to see if any action on the boat tax would be taken but found out they would have to wait another month to see what state officials have to say on the enforcement of the tax on Lake Cumberland.

Again, the state law allows counties to collect property taxes on houseboats and other watercraft which are docked, or stored locally for more than 60 days but many on the lake have gone untaxed up to this point.