Sales Tax

[Charlotte11]

Longshot, but can I compare notes with you guys? Here's the thing:

In Virginia, AirBnB refuses to follow VA law to provide host data along with the remittance of bulk sales tax revenue to localities. (All other platforms have no problem with that.) So, hosts are required to submit a monthly report to the local government that lists the rental income last month and how much tax should be remitted on our behalf.

In order to figure that out, I long ago developed a spreadsheet template to help. Pull up last month's transactions on AirBnB and export to csv, then plug in the numbers to the template. In Dec 2022, I discovered that AirBnB started charging sales tax on the fee guests pay them. OK, no problem, probably gearing up for the Oct 2023 transition from hosts remitting the taxes to AirBnB remitting them.

On July 1 2024, our local transient occupancy rate rose from 8% to 9%. So I edit the template accordingly. Then I realized the total sales tax didn't match what AirBnB listed on the Transaction History. Went line by line for my 3 bookings in July and found that the rate AirBnB charged on guest fees wasn't consistent. One was correct - the total of local and state tax = 14.3%. One factored out at 6.23% (??) and the last at 6.2% (??).

I called AirBnB on Sep 6 and they said it would be researched and they'd get back to me. I've received 3 "still working on your issue" messages and still have no answer. So I'm reaching out to you people! Does anyone else track this line by line or do you just report what AirBnB lists in the Transaction History? They reported (and presumably paid) $464.03 in collected taxes for July and, by my calculations, it should have been $491.21.

Thanks for any feedback!

[Charlotte11]

@Joan2709 Interesting stuff and while I'm waiting for their call, I'll dig in!

First, in Virginia, VRBO and the other smaller host platforms do indeed provide host and address info when they remit the sales tax to the state and the locality. No problem.

Second, in Charlottesville, we are required to do the reporting you mention. The thing is, there's no way that the City can "audit" the information because there are so many illegal AirBnBs here. There's no way to "match up" the taxes they receive from AirBnB with insufficient reporting. And that's because it's expensive to enforce the homestay law here and they haven't gotten the funding necessary to crack down. That's coming up though.

I see now your link to the Florida debacle and also that you were a big part of the commenting help on that - well done! That said, AirBnB remits host names and addresses in NYC and thousands of localities around the world. It's a bit of a lame stretch to go with a privacy defense. Hosts are in business. We have responsibilities and requirements to follow state law as regards sales tax and local laws as regards regulation and reporting. How can anyone think we or AirBnB gets to keep parts of this process secret?!

Anyway, thanks for all your help and I hope this thread will be of interest to others from time to time. I'll post a resolution (if I ever get one?!).

Cheers!
Charlotte

[Joan2709]

@Charlotte11 

Thanks again for posting here...

I guest my only thought about NYC is they had an outright ban and restricting to min 30-day stays for certain types of property as an attempt to solve housing issues.

Virginia hasn't banned short term rentals outright I don't think? They are just trying to get information for tax purposes?

[Joan2709]

@Charlotte11 

Here is the other thread. I was Palm Beach County, FL that tried the same thing as Virginia attempting to get Airbnb to give them all the listings and Host names. Per the thread, they did lose the case after went to supreme court. 

https://community.withairbnb.com/t5/Help-with-your-business/Palm-Beach-County-Tourist-Development-Ta...

[Charlotte11]

Interesting regarding the Florida case... am I reading this right? A Florida appellate court ruled that host platforms couldn't be made to collect and remit sales taxes on behalf of the hosts. However, "out of a settlement, Airbnb had to regularly submit to the tax collector’s office information on Airbnb hosts to ensure the hosts were registered with that office and were paying tourist taxes" (Palm Beach Post, Oct 2020).  Subsequently, the Florida Supreme Court declined the case, letting the ruling stand (2021).

Re: NYC, there's good and bad stuff in that 2022 law. Yes, you can rent for 30+ days in a pre-approved building. And there are some buildings where you can rent for fewer than 30 days but you must live on-site with the guests (like rent a basement apartment when you're upstairs, for example).  But a cool part of the law is that hosting platforms can't process your rentals unless "they are using the city's verification system, that all verifications are occurring correctly, and that the platforms stop processing unverified transactions."

Charlottesville has a similar but modified rule: you must own the home you rent short-term as your primary residence. In other words, it's illegal to buy a house or apartment and rent it out short-term when you reside elsewhere. (The trick here is the enforcement, which hopefully will be resolved sooner than later.) You don't have to be on site when the guests are.

All of which to say, both of those references are very handy, thank you very much. And note that I am also using this thread to collate pertinent points for our upcoming local civic discussion about short-term rentals.

Looks like AirBnB Support bailed on calling me back this afternoon... sigh.