Colorado lodging and sales taxes

[Michael491]

We are Denver hosts now registering our room according to the new city Short Term Rental laws. All has gone well so far, despite the overly bureaucratic rules and the general discouragement of business, which we find remarkable. I see that Air BnB now has arrangements to collect taxes directly for those hosting in Colorado Springs, Golden and Steamboat. Does anyone know if talks are in the works to get Denver into the automated system, obviously it would be a great convenience for the many Denver hosts who are trying to be compliant. Failing that, can other Colorado hosts tell me how they physically collect the local Lodging and state Sales taxes? Do you simply add it to the room rate? Or do you try to collect directly from guests upon arrival? 

[Richard264]

Holly...  I would check your listing by pulling it up as a guest would see it to verify the percentage that Airbnb is collecting.  My understanding is that they are collecting state, county, and special district county taxes.  The state collects all of these taxes typically, and then passes the money for the counties to the appropriate entity (statewide). That is what is happening for me in Summit County, and what I've read indicates that should be happening for all counties. 

[Stacy37]

Hi Holly,

I discovered a glitch in Telluride that has to do with your address.  You need to call AirBnB  and make sure they have the right google map coordinates for zip code 81435 (not 81320!)  when it is fixed you can click on your calendar and click on "what do guests pay"  click on the question mark next to sales and use tax and it should show 4 different taxes (3 san miguel county related).  you can then close your state tax accounts and only pay your local munirevs taxes.  you may need to try a few different airbnb reps before you find one that gets it.  Gladys and Jean in the Phillipines were very helpful! also there's a rep named Azza who understands the issue. 

[Stacy37]

Hi Holly

I discovered a glitch in Telluride that has to do with your address. You need to call AirBnB and make sure they have the right google map coordinates for zip code 81435 (not 81320!) when it is fixed you can click on your calendar and click on "what do guests pay" click on the question mark next to sales and use tax and it should show 4 different taxes (3 san miguel county related). you can then close your state tax accounts and only pay your local munirevs taxes. you may need to try a few different airbnb reps before you find one that gets it. Gladys and Jean in the Phillipines were very helpful! also there's a rep named Azza who understands the issue.

[Holly74]

Thanks, Stacy. I hadn't looked into this until now and of course the airbnb rep couldn't do more than say that our google map shows the correct zip code.  Do you remember where they looked, or how to tell which coordinates they have? I asked to speak to the reps that you mention, but they said they had no way to connect me to them.  Thanks for any help! I know I'm stuck with complicated taxes for 2017 but I'd love to simplify them for 2018. Happy new year! 

[Amy207]

How do you open a ticket?  We have a condo in Winter Park and noticed that AirBnB is not charging WP sales tax but is collecting Grand County and CO tax.  I'd like confirmation as well from AirBnb.  

[Richard264]

I opened one through the help center... but never heard back... so I called them. The folks on the phone seem very knowledgable... and both times I've called I was satisfied with the information I received.

The reason you are not seeing the Winter Park tax... is that Winter Park has not applied to Airbnb to have them withhold the tax for them. Breckenridge is currently in a similar sitution. State and County sales taxes are all handled and collected by the state... but individual towns and cities, for the most part, administer their own taxes. I called the Breckenridge accounting department earlier this week... and was told that they are currently working with Airbnb to begin withholding town taxes. It sounded as if they were pretty close to making that happen. You should give a call to Winter Park to see if they have anything in process.

[Janet146]

I have property in Winter Park and Air B n B is withholding taxes from my guests. I hope they are paying those taxes??!! 

[Sara334]

I think they are up there. But in Denver, they take out some, and we have to pay a little more than 10% out of our payment back to the IRS. So I've had to raise my rate, not getting as many requests or reservations. The prices down here are so low. There are a jillion Airbnb's. 

[Janet146]

Hi all, I have seen many posts on this matter and I just double checked what rate Air BnB was taking out and they are collecting 9.2% on every transaction for our condo in Winter Park. I am hoping they are paying my taxes as I have never been late.

Thank you for your input!

Best to you all,

Janet

[Georgia10]

Amy, 

I have the same situation. Our condo is in Snowmass Village where the total tax is 12.8% when you add up the 4 state, county and local taxes. They are only calculating tax based on 3 for us and have omitted one of the local taxes. First, I found another listing in my same complex that was calculating the right tax. Then I called their customer service number (you can google it). Those people can't fix the calculation but they can open a ticket. I am now in back and forth with them. I had to get the Snowmass tax people to send me an email confirming the tax rate. I sent it to the Cust Svc contact and they say they are working on it. 

I think they had a bad implementation and are now struggling to fix things. You just have to stay on top of them. I contact them every day or 2 - either email or phone. 

Good luck!

[Georgia10]

Problem solved. Taxes being calculated correctly. 

[Paul377]

We really need to be able to get a detailed accounting from airbnb. i have opened a ticket with them but i've only received a generic answer like " we collect taxes ranging from x% to y% based on your location. If/When we get audited and have to prove compliance are we supposed to say "i don't know, airbnb took care of that for me"?  In the end we (the hosts) are responsible for correct accounting. This whole tax/fee auto-collection thing is a major cluster-F in my opinion. 

[Tyler29]

Paul & Everyone who is a host in Denver,

I just got off the phone with my uncle who is a CPA for a major hotel chain in Florida and he showed me how to report my "gross receipts" to the city of Denver for their 10.75% lodgers tax.  This may seem obvious to most people but it took a minute to wrap my head around it.  So lets assume I did $10,000 in sales in 2016, this is the number I got from adding up all of the revenue listed on the "Stats" portion of the Host bar.  I originally assumed I had to pay 10.75% to Denver on the $10k and 4% to the State of Colorado but it actually goes like this:

Total Earnings:                               $10,000

City of Denver Tax -                  10.75%

State of Colorado Tax -            4%

-----------------------------------------------------

Total "Sales" Tax Percentage - 14.75% 

To get your pre-tax revenue you divide $10,000/1.1475 = $8,714.60   - This is what you plug into line one of Denver Lodgers Tax 

Tax owed for Denver = $8,714.60 * 10.75% = $936.82

Tax owed to Colorado = $8,714.60 * 4%     = $348.58

$8,714.60 + $936.82 + $348.58 = $10,000

Since I rent my unit out all month, it would be cumbersome and a bad guest experience for me to turn around and charge each guest additional tax after they have booked instantly.  I know if this happened to me I would be less than happy.  Per a phone conversation I had with the City of Denver, the tax does not have to be charged separately from your rate, and can be "rolled in" to the nightly rate.  This is really the only way I see to charge this feasibly.  Since the taxes eat into most of my profits, it is becoming more hassle than its worth, and I'm considering changing it to a long term rental if prices don't come up.  I'm also thinking that once people start paying this new tax that prices will have to come up and we can all start making money again 🙂  Its sad that the City of Denver taxes Denver listings so heavily because it will inevitably remove great listings from the Airbnb marketplace and take away an awesome opportunity for guests to stay at cool properties.  I would love to hear other's experiences or thoughts on this!

-Tyler

[Sara334]

Help!

where do I find the state sales tax # for the form that I fill out to get the lodger's tax ID #??

and now I have to collect the extra 10+% or pay it out of my earnings??

im new to this and thoroughly confused. 

Any way you could text me for a little help? I'm already late doing this!

sara (303) 875-2920

[James588]

That is an interesting calculation. Can anyone confirm this?