My town wants to start taxing AirBNB, in a very stupid way....

[Nicolas1281]

My town council here in Middletown, RI recently proposed to make short term rental hosts to pay property tax for commercial property instead of lower residential rate.  The commercial rate is about 40% higher.  I often only host for a few weeks a year and this will eat up most of my profit on those years, making it not worth it.  How can I convince my town to charge a local occupancy tax and not go this property tax route?  Isn't it super easy for Airbnb to collect the occupancy taxes?  Seems like you would instantly get 100% compliance and not encourage lots of cheating.  If they go the property tax route, it doesn't matter how many nights you rent, you'll still be charged the same of amount of new taxes.  Crazy.    Appreciate any thoughts.

[Lorna170]

@Nicolas1281   Are they also going to change the zoning laws?  If your rental property (sounds like you rent just a part of your actual residence) is within a residential area, has zoning restrictions that apply to residences and not to commercial businesses, are they going to re-zone your house as a commercial business, or disallow you from conducting business as a "commercial" airbnb because you are zoned residential?  Big can of worms....