MAYVILLE — Chautauqua County might be getting into the bed and breakfast business.

Well, not exactly, but county officials are proposing to change the local law dealing with the collection of occupancy tax to allow Airbnb to collect the revenue for the county.

This week, Kitty Crow, Chautauqua County finance director, discussed the proposed changed with the Chautauqua County Legislature Audit and Control Committee. She said several counties in New York have already made agreements with Airbnb to allow them to collect the bed tax on their behalf. She added that the change in the local law would deal with the language to allow Airbnb to collect the occupancy tax in aggregate from all using the online hospitality service in the county without knowing how much comes from each individual business or home owner.

Crow said Airbnb won’t change their privacy policy, but the county would still require all businesses and house owners to register with the county who use Airbnb or other online hospitality service companies. She said all online hospitality services who would collect occupancy tax would be included in the new local law.

Currently, county employees check Airbnb and other online hospitality services to make sure all are registered with the county and paying bed tax, Crow said. She said if Airbnb collected the bed tax it would free up county employee time and resources. She added that it is her “gut feeling” that the county would also bring in more occupancy tax revenue because Airbnb will be able to collect from some businesses or house owners that might be “flying under the radar” with the county.

Pierre Chagnon, Audit and Control Committee chairman, said county employees put in a significant amount of time making sure all businesses and house owners on Airbnb and other online hospitality services are registered with the county and submitting their bed tax revenue, which wouldn’t be necessary if county officials make the change. He also said other counties have made the change as well.

The committee agreed that Crow and Stephen Abdella, county attorney, should pursuing making the local law change to allow for Airbnb and other online hospitality services to collect bed tax for county officials.