Boston's taxing burden

NEW YORK City's Mayor Michael Bloomberg is ecstatic about the saffron ''Gates" art installation in Central Park, which drew an estimated 1.5 million out-of-town visitors and generated more than $250 million in economic activity in the city from Feb. 12 through Feb. 27. Mayor Menino is green-eyed to the point that he is challenging artists from around the world to dress up the Rose Kennedy Greenway, the milelong series of parks and civic attractions beginning to take shape atop the Central Artery.

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No matter how intense the competition or creative the design, even an effort that was successful with the public would do little to help the city's own coffers. The reason has nothing to do with art and everything to do with the unreasonable restrictions placed on the city's ability to expand its sources of revenue. New York City benefits from a 4.1 percent sales tax, a 4.1 percent restaurant tax, and a 10.1 percent tax on hotel rooms. But in Massachusetts, it is the state that captures such revenues when visitors come to Boston exept for a 4 percent hotel tax earmarked for the city. Property tax payers in the city are forced to make up the difference, a situation that is becoming increasingly untenable.

According to the Boston Redevelopment Authority, the city would see just a little more than $500,000 in revenue if 90,000 out-of-towners were to stay in hotels and dine in area restaurants over a period of three days and two nights. Assuming the same length of stay and the same two guests per hotel room, New York City would reap $2.4 million, according to the BRA.

In calling New York-style revenues during a luncheon yesterday that was sponsored by the Boston Municipal Research Bureau, Menino deplored the city's overreliance on the property tax as ''a revenue structure brought over by the Pilgrims." It was a tough message for a business audience. But it was the right one if executives expect the city to maintain a level of services consistent with a first-class city.

Menino is seeking approval from the state Legislature on Beacon Hill to impose a 1 percent local option tax on meals, a 10 percent excise tax on off-street parking, and other sensible revenue measures. Similar efforts in recent years have disappeared down what Menino called, in a slip of the tongue, ''Beacon hole."

There is no evidence that the additional revenues needed to maintain basic city services can be captured mainly through better management methods. Just last month, Moody's Investors Service assigned a rating of Aa1 to Boston's bond debt, its highest rating to date. Wall Street investors are showing confidence. It's time the city's business leaders did the same by supporting the mayor's creative efforts to generate the revenues needed to elevate Boston.