Massachusetts New Guest Tax???

[Ken-and-Kathleen0]

AirBnB collects and remits taxes in 40+ states, PR and the US Virgin Islands, but for some reason, the tax they were a proponent of in Massachusetts is not even mentioned.

There have been no updates by AirBnB on how they are going to help their hosts handle this tax which according to the State information includes all fees cleaning, and service (AirBnB Service Fee?) and the Security Deposit.

The bulk of Massachusetts AirBnB revenue in Massachusetts would have to come from Summer Rentals in places like the Cape, Martha's Vineyard, Nantucket and the Berkshires. 

Without some sort of resolution, or at least notice from AirBnB we're faced with either eating the tax, reporting costs, etc. or just cancelling all of our summer reservations. 

[Gregory31]

sorry, meant to add that airbnb should collect the taxes and if enough hosts and guests complain, they will.

[Chaula1]

I did a ton of research after I posted the other day, Ken,  And I agree if I were also responsible for an additional local tax I would certainly want them to do it for me I am in no way advocating that we should collect his taxes I was just explaining what I found on the website to make it clear to the many people here  Who had so much confusion.   And as you see Ken and Kathleen below have also discovered that same posting. 

 I sympathize with people from West Springfield in Springfield and east where there are three or four different types of local taxes in addition to the 5.7 state tax I was reading on the mass.gov website the frequently asked questions page which lists all these various taxes one of which has to be collected as far west as Springfield and West Springfield… It’s called a convention Send her a text and apparently all short term rentals in a certain area will have to pay this two point something tax on top of the 5.7 tax and apparently the poor people in the curb and in Boston have several of the smaller taxes to collect so, yeah I agree that Airbnb should do this for us and I totally agree that we should all be hounding them. I’ve been hounding them for months but it’s close enough to July That I figured this weird enough is enough I had better or myself with some information and be prepared for worst-case scenario. I I have a feeling the reason we are not receiving an email rolling out the big tax plan yet is that I have not yet figured out how to manage it yet. But in all the big cities Paris, New York, they have figured it out and complied so I would advise everybody to get information From mass.gov website, share it with your accountant,  and to place an alert on the homepage of your listing telling guests that at that Governor Baker has created this law and that we all have to comply we don’t have to let the guests know what kind of anxiety we are experiencing over it or say anything negative to the guests about you but we do need to prepare ourselves and our guests for price increases. As I find out more I’ll post and I’ll come back to this site to hear what you guys all have to say .

Chaula in Pittsfield

[Carolyn31]

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@Gregory31 wrote:

sorry, meant to add that airbnb should collect the taxes and if enough hosts and guests complain, they will.

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They are collecting both state and city taxes (a total of 17.45% for Cambridge), at least on my 2 Cambridge listings, they are collecting those taxes. 

[Carolyn31]

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@Chaula1 wrote:

I just went into my listings, clicked on LOCAL LAWS and there is now a clear statement that AirBnb WILL be collecting the 5.7% state hotel occupancy tax on our behalf.  They suggest that we all contact the town in which we are renting rooms or homes, register for permitting or licensing if required, and ask whether our town requires us to collect a local town or city tax, as I gather most of you on the cape are to collect 5.7% for the state and the other 9 or so % for the local authorities.  As of today they are saying (quietly) that we will be responsible only for the local tax collection and that, yes, we should put something in our listing that we now must collect a local tax payable by check upon arrival.  

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I just tried to book my listing and Airbnb is collecting the state AND local taxes for my listing in Cambridge.

[Ken-and-Kathleen0]

I happened to look at our listing today and this was under local laws:

I guess Airbnb is going to collect and remit the taxes now. Would it have been too much for them to alert their hosts to this change? 

[Bruce25]

Fran is correct.  Yes the 'Local Laws' is tempting but it doesn't do anything.  Please contact AirBnB corporate  at : 

www.airbnb.com/help/feedback

If they get LOTS of complaints maybe something will happen.   Asking for more money after a booking is enough for us to stop using AirBnB.

[Fran125]

I have been going around in circles with Airbnb since this law was passed.  It says on my listing "Your listing is in Massachusetts State where Airbnb collects and remits occupancy taxes on your behalf. click here for more info" - but there isn't any real info as to where and how to apply the tax to the listing. 

I list on Homeaway as well and they already have it set up as a separate line item so that the guests know there is a tax applied BEFORE they book.  At this point, any new reservations booked now that begin after 7/1/2019 I am deducting 14.45% from the total booking fees.  As my listing allows for instant booking, I don't think it is right to then respond to the guest with - "oh and by the way, you also need to pay 14.45% tax"!  I don't want to just lump the tax into the total nightly rate, as it will result in my listing losing a competitive edge.  Hopefully they will figure this out soon!

[Bruce25]

well said Fran.

[Carolyn31]

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@Fran125 wrote:

 but there isn't any real info as to where and how to apply the tax to the listing. 

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You don't have to apply the tax to your listing. Airbnb does that automatically on any bookings for occupancy dates begining on or after July 1. 

I list on Homeaway as well 

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The problem with Homeawy is that they apply the tax you manually enter to all bookings even those that should be exempt (e.g., 32+ days bookings or those bookings which begin before July 1).

Also, since most hosts don't have the information they need vis-e-vis the new tax laws, they are not adding these taxes to their Homeaway listings which means if you add them, you are at a disadvantage. I've decided that until Homeaway gets their act together and implements the automatic tax collection correctly, I'm not going to list with them.

One thing that us hosts need to do is register on the DOR MassConnect site sometime on or shortly after July 1. We also need to register with the local municipality if that municipality requires a registration. 

DOR has vido tutorials on how to register on their web site. Look for the video labeled "How to register as an operator." Both the platform and the hosts must register. The most prominent video on this page is for the platforms (aka intermediary). 

https://www.mass.gov/info-details/room-occupancy-frequently-asked-questions#video-tutorials:-masstax...

[Bruce25]

Update on tax collection : MA is not included in the list that airbnb support gave me https://www.airbnb.com/help/article/2509/in-what-areas-is-occupancy-tax-collection-and-remittance-by...

lol....  but tax is shown on the guest receipt and seems to be correctly calculated.  So they are now doing the right thing at least in Brewster, MA.

You can download .csv's from your transaction history and there is a column for your payments.   Future payments do not have the tax column.   I'm asking airbnb to get details on the tax collected before the platform added the MA tax collection...  What a pain!

[Kristen239]

So we just need to register with DOR as a operator?  But we will not be submitting tax payment?

[Carolyn31]

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@Kristen239 wrote:

So we just need to register with DOR as a operator?  But we will not be submitting tax payment?

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That is correct. 

[John47]

@Kristen239You need to register as operator but only need to submit tax payments on any rentals done directly with tenant without intermediary (like Airbnb/VRBO) who collects payment for you.

[John47]

@Fran125 
Since I'm not that familiar with them: Does HomeAway charge a booking fee to customer? If so, is that amount visible to you? Because that is also a taxable item and that's why it's up to the listing site to collect/remit the tax since if you don't know the total taxable amt, you can't compute the right tax.

[Mark1627]

I've set a minimum 32 nights stay as we tend to rent our Newton House for 90 days on average. 

Will airbnb mistakingly collect taxes from our guests? If so, when will they correct that and how does the guest get a refund.

Its unlawful to collect a tax from a customer that is not due.