[GUIDE] Florida Sales Tax Tutorial

[Karen1]

To ALL Florida Hosts,

If anyone in the Tax Collector's Offices says that YOU are responsible for your state tax on Airbnb reservations, they are misinformed and giving you old information. Airbnb entered into an agreement with the State of Florida on December 1, 2015, which states that they will collect and remit Florida Transient Tax on all Florida reservations. This tax will be paid in a lump sum by filing one tax return per jurisdiction, with the total combined reservation revenue. Airbnb will not be filing individual forms (such as the DR-1C form) on behalf of hosts. Just know that there are still many people who do not know what Airbnb is, including staff in the local tax offices.  Even after two years, many are not aware of this agreement between the Department of Revenue and Airbnb.

Since there is a lot of confusion over the topic, I wrote a Florida Tax Tutorial.  This is accurate as of September 2017:

Basic Florida Tax Info:

The State of Florida taxes short-term rentals (housing rented for 182 days or less) with a Transient Tax. This amount varies per county and consists of the Florida base Sales Tax of 6% plus the county's Discretionary Surtax. Each county may or may not have a Discretionary Surtax. This tax ranges from .5 to 1.5%. The 2017 Discretionary Surtax by county is found here: 2017-Descretionary-Sales-Surtax-Rates-DR-15DSS.pdf

Additionally, each county may tax short-term rentals with Tourist Development Tax. As of June 2017, the Tourist Development Tax amounts were:

ALACHUA 5.0%, BAKER 3.0%, BAY 5.0%, BRADFORD 4.0%, BREVARD 5.0%, BROWARD 5.0%, CALHOUN none, CHARLOTTE 5.0%, CITRUS 5.0%, CLAY 3.0%, COLLIER 4.0%, COLUMBIA 5.0%, DESOTO 3.0%, DIXIE 2.0%, DUVAL 6.0%, ESCAMBIA 4.0%, FLAGLER 5.0%, FRANKLIN 2.0%, GADSDEN 2.0%, GILCHRIST 2.0%, GLADES 2.0%, GULF 5.0% Rate will return to 4% on 1/01/20, HAMILTON 3.0%, HENDRY 3.0%, HARDEE 2.0%, HERNANDO 5.0%, HIGHLANDS 2.0%, HILLSBOROUGH 5.0%, HOLMES 2.0%, INDIAN RIVER 4.0%, JACKSON 4.0%, JEFFERSON 2.0%, LAFAYETTE none, LAKE 4.0%, LEE 5.0%, LEON 5.0%, LEVY 2.0%, LIBERTY none, MADISON 3.0%, MANATEE 5.0%, MARION 4.0%, MARTIN 5.0%, MIAMI-DADE 6.0%, MONROE 5.0%, NASSAU 4.0%, OKALOOSA 5.0%, OKEECHOBE 3.0%, ORANGE 6.0%, OSCEOLA 6.0%, PALM BEACH 6.0%, PASCO 2.0%, PINELLAS 6.0%, POLK 5.0%, PUTNAM 4.0%, ST JOHNS 4.0%, ST LUCIE 5.0% Rate will return to 3% on 1/01/43, SANTA ROSA 5.0%, SARASOTA 5.0%, SEMINOLE 5.0%, SUMTER 2.0%, SUWANNEE 3.0% Rate will return to 2% on 7/01/21, TAYLOR 5.0%, UNION none, VOLUSIA 6.0%, WAKULLA 4.0%, WALTON 4.0%, WASHINGTON 3.0%

What tax does Airbnb collect and pay?

Tax is based on your nightly rate plus your cleaning fee. Each Airbnb confirmation email you receive will have the amount of tax collected for that reservation. To find a summary of the collected taxes, go to Hosting / Stats/ Earnings/ View Transaction History/ Gross Earnings and choose a date range.

For all Florida properties, Airbnb collects and remits the Transient Tax (the 6% plus your county's Discretionary Surtax).

Additionally, Airbnb collects the Tourist Development Tax in SOME counties because that tax is administered by the state for those counties. Currently the 24 counties are: Bradford, Citrus, Columbia, Desoto, Dixie, Flagler, Franklin, Gadsden, Gilchrist, Glades, Hamilton, Hardee, Hendry, Holmes, Jackson, Jefferson, Levy, Madison, Okaloosa, Okeechobee, Pasco, Sumter, Wakulla, and Washington.

Recently, other counties entered into their own agreements with Airbnb. Tourist Development Tax is now also collected and remited for Brevard, Broward, Hernando, Hillsborough, Indian River, Lee, Leon, Miami-Dade*, Orange, Pinellas, Polk, Putnam, Santa Rosa, Sarasota, Taylor, and the city of Surfside.  *Note, there are exceptions to Miami-Dade county. See source below.

What tax do you have to collect and submit?

At minimum, nothing (depending on your county) and at maximum, your county's Tourist Development Tax.

If you rent your Florida property by using only Airbnb, you must delete your account with the Florida Department of Revenue. You only need the FL DOR account if you offer your property on other platforms where taxes are not paid for you.  If you keep an account, DOR will expect payment. Do not pay double taxes!

If your county is not listed as one where Airbnb accepts and pays Tourist Development Tax, then you need to visit your county's Tax Collector's Office. They may require you to apply for an Occupational License and they will instruct you on how to pay the Tourist Development Tax.

Also, just recently, Airbnb stopped rounding to the nearest dollar and is not calculating payments, taxes and fees to the dollar and cents.  Please let me know if you find any errors in this information.

Sources: https://www.airbnb.com/help/article/653/in-what-areas-is-occupancy-tax-collection-and-remittance-by-...

https://www.airbnb.com/help/article/481/how-do-taxes-work-for-hosts

https://www.airbnb.com/help/article/654/what-is-occupancy-tax--do-i-need-to-collect-or-pay-it

[Ravyn2]

I would try looking at your county ordinances.  

[Cameron50]

Hi, Karen.  It sounds like you have a decent amount of experience with this.  I am struggling with how to account for and report taxes if I use AirBnB as a platform separately from how I collect, report, and pay taxes for all of my other guests.  I am a real estate agent and I have a number of properties I am considering putting on AirBnB but am very hesitant to do so.  The law states for me to report the full income each month and I don't see where it addresses excluding a partial collection like AirBnB does.  So if I'm declaring full income, but only paying the non-AirBnB portion of income, won't this cause all sorts of red flags for audits, etc.?  My Tax Collector ID will remain quite active with the inactive properties underneath which I typically collect & remit for.

[Kim594]

Hi Cameron: 

I am about ready to pull all my hair out!  I have tried to call the Fl. Dept of Revenue for answers and they are absolutly no  help.  The only thing they keep telling me is that my Transient Rental Incomes have to be the same for State and County filings (I am in Monroe County).  Well how can they be the same if AirBnB is remitting the state tax for me?  If they are the same, then my guest will be paying the state tax and I will also be paying the state tax.  Did you ever find out  how you fill out your Sales and Use tax form DR-15?  I called my accountant and she said to put the amount that AirBnB remitted to the state of Florida in the Lawful Deductions spot.  Is this how you did it??

Any help you can offer would be greatly appreciated! 

Kim

[Karen1]

@Cameron50, when Airbnb first started collecting Florida Transient Tax on Host's behalf, I contacted the FL Department of Revenue. They told me not to report any Airbnb income because the agreement with Airbnb meant the company would handle remitting all the taxes.  In fact, since that was the only platform I was using, the FL DOR cancelled my account. 

The Tax help page on Airbnb's site confirms this:

"In some locations, Airbnb hosts may have a collect and remit feature available to handle occupancy tax. Hosts should not collect occupancy taxes separately for those jurisdictions."

If you report income and remit the state tax on Airbnb rentals, you will be paying double taxation. But, if you are still unsure, you can contact the FL Department of Revenue for clarification. 

[Cameron50]

Thanks, Karen.  I appreciate the feedback.  Looks like I have a small research project to do.  If I didn't have other platforms I'm sure I'd see this as a convenience, but having to find ways to track separately for tax entities as well as my owner statements- this is seeming like quite the undertaking.

[Kim594]

Hi Karen:  I have tried to call the Fl. Dept of Revenue for answers and they are absolutly no  help.  The only thing they keep telling me is that my Transient Rental Incomes have to be the same for State and County filings (I am in Monroe County).  Well how can they be the same if AirBnB is remitting the state tax for me?  If they are the same, then my guest will be paying the state tax and I will also be paying the state tax.  Did you ever find out  how you fill out your Sales and Use tax form DR-15?  I called my accountant and she said to put the amount that AirBnB remitted to the state of Florida in the Lawful Deductions spot.  Is this how you did it??

Any help you can offer would be greatly appreciated! 

Kim

[Karen1]

Hi, Kim. Did you ever get this tax problem resolved? 

If you are renting your Florida property only via Airbnb's platform, cancel your account with the FL Dept of Revenue. They are getting the full amount of the state sales tax from your guests through Airbnb and you do not need to report anything to the state.  If however you rent your property on other platforms, only include the amount received on those platforms, not the amount received from Airbnb. 

The truth is that you can call the FL Dept of Revenue and get staff who still do not understand Airbnb.  They think Airbnb is a property management company.  The definitive answer is that Airbnb has an agreement with the FL DOR to pay all state sales tax for all Florida Airbnb hosts.  So if you maintained an account with the FL DOR, you would have to submit a form with zero income and zero sales tax collected each quarter.

Your county tax is not being collected currently by Airbnb. So, you will either have to collect it from your guests or absorb it into your rate.  (I think there will be another way to collect it online coming soon! At least that is what I heard.)  Monroe county's Tourist Development Tax is currently is 5%.  See this site: http://www.monroetaxcollector.com/touristdevelopment.html

Let me know if you have anymore questions.   - Karen

[Jessica2494]

Hi Karen, 

I am new to Monroe county tourist tax, and am learning that I not only need to pay 5% on my gross earnings, but the total payout the guest paid (inclusive of airbnb's fees). Is that accurate? I find it hard to believe that I am paying 5% on airbnb's profits.

Thanks,

Jessica

[Mari97]

Hello

If you are Hosting in Miami Beach, you must collect and remit  4% resort tax that is not collected by Airbnb 

airbnb DOES NOT collect local/resort tax

report and pay by the 30th if each month I’d your total payout including cleaning 

Miami Beach is very vigilant and strict about licensing and collecting 

citations for illegally renting are very very very high 

Please host wisely

cheers 

[Joseph1224]

c

[Joseph1224]

Hey @Karen1  @Cameron50 & @Kim594  --- I am coming across your thread 2 years later, and I just wanted to ask if you had any updates on the final solution?

I'm in the same position as you all. I have properties that I advertise on multiple platforms including airbnb, and I also have a FL-DOR account. I understand that if airbnb is my only platform, then just delete my FL-DOR account. But since that is not the case, I'm not wondering which of the below 2 methods is the correct one?

(1) Only report NON-airbnb income on FL-DOR. And in the cases when my income is only from airbnb, then just report a ZERO income in those months? 

(2) Or instead report ALL income (including from airbnb). And list the Airbnb income in the "less lawful deductions" section. 

Which one is the right one? Any updates?

[Karen1]

@Joseph1224, since Airbnb reports your short-term rental stays from their platform to the Florida DOR, do not report it again. I am not sure what the "less lawful dections" is used for, but you do not want to pay tax twice. You are legally good by using your method #1. 

[Cameron50]

@Joseph1224 , I agree with what @Karen1  said about Option 1.  So some months you may have $0 or just a little to report, while others may report everything.  I still have a spreadsheet of all my guests to track who I filed as a $0 in case there is ever a question!  One other thing to watch out for- I'm not sure if its an issue on AirBnB or not since I've stopped using them completely about a year ago for a multitude of reasons, but HomeAway fails to collect taxes for any extensions on a stay that occur after the initial booking.  I just calculate the taxes in on the extension and include it in my payment request.  Then I use the income for the extension only to report & remit the taxes.  Just a heads up to keep an eye...I don't want to be liable for some faceless platform's oversight!

[Karen740]

@Karen1, Thank you for posting this information. I just listed yesterday and have my first reservation. After reading Santiago's reply I am now concerned becuse I am also in Pasco county. I have seen numerous listings in Pasco Co., so how could airbnb be illegal. I am wondering if it could be a property type or specific location issue rather than just being illegal in Pasco Co. Any further insight is appreciated.

Thanks,

Karen B 

[Deanne-And-Nancy0]

Hi Karen and everyone,

We are in Charlotte County and are just becoming aware of how uninformed we have been!  Based on your information, for two years now, we've been paying double taxes to the state for our airbnb reservations. Does anyone have any information on how easy it might be to obtain REFUNDS from the state for this overpaid tax? I'm sensing the possibility of audits.  We OVERPAID the state a little more than $1,000 in 2017.  Would really like to have that back! 

Thanks!

Nancy