My listings are exempt from the Massachusetts state regulation occupancy tax because they are fewer then four rooms in an owner occupied unit. After spending a huge amount of time working with Airbnb support to list the rooms as exempt before the December 1 deadline, in the end they informed me that Airbnb doesn't support exempt listings and they changed my listings to minimum 91 day stays.
First, the state regulation considers anything over 31 days as long term and thereby exempt from the occupancy tax. Apparently Airbnb is using the Boston City regulation that defines short term as up to 90 days. My property is not in Boston.
Second, Airbnb has already charged the occupancy my guests who stayed prior to the December 1 deadline. Legally the guests do not owe this tax.
People are wondering what Airbnb is doing with the tax money they are collecting: I would guess that they will pay it to the state. The state will not have anyway of knowing that these taxes aren't actually due.
I am glad to hear that the state has a place to register units that are exempt. I'll see if I can find that. Hopefully Airbnb will be forced to catch up with the need to allow listings to be listed as exempt. And they are going to have to return a lot of money that they have collected from guests who stayed in exempt units.
In the meantime I am losing short term bookings.
One clarification/distinction about what I've been reading in this thread: the exemption for bed and breakfast homes required breakfast be "provided", not "served". I think having cereal or English muffins available for the guests to prepare for themselves qualifies.
