Please Help! Texas Hotel Occupancy tax Notice

[Shilpa9]

Hello Airbnb Community.

I have a airbnb in Austin Texas.

I recently got a letter from the Comptroller of Texas that no Occupancy taxes were paid for the 3Q(july-sept 2017)...I thought that Airbnb were taking care of the State Occupancy tax for us. 

If that is so then why am I getting a bill and plus a late filing fee and a penalty on top of that..

This is so confusing. Is AirBnb paying the state occupancy tax for us or not.

I have been paying the City of Austin  Hotel occupancy tax every quarter...

Please advise.!!

-sam patel

[Clare0]

@Shilpa9 Hmmm. This is odd since Airbnb is collecting Texas Occupancy Taxes for all Airbnb reservations.  You can see what Airbnb collected for each reservation by going to your Transaction History > Gross Earnings. 

I would recommend that you contact the Comptroller of Texas and give them the information of what Airbnb has collected.  Sounds like they may have some kind of system issue.  If they still insist that Occupancy taxes have not been paid, then contact Airbnb.  They have a special team that deal with this. 

This is what the Gross Earnings Occupancy Tax report looks like.  Note that in my area Airbnb just started collecting TOT taxes in my area beginning October 1. 

I hope this helps!

[Shilpa9]

Thank you Clare,

I just checked the gross earnings and it does show amounts in the Occupancy tax column for all the reservations.

I am gonna have to call the comptroller and see what is up..Before airbnb started to collect I was paying both the city and state every quarter and easy peasy...Now that Airbnb is collecting not sure if they are depositing every quarter or not. So on the state side it shows no payment...Hopefully someone from texas can chime in also..

Thank you once again Clare

S Patel

[Clare0]

@Shilpa9 In my area in California, Airbnb remits taxes to the county on a monthly basis.  I still need to fill out a form, which I do online, indicating the amount that Airbnb has collected.  Prior to Airbnb collecting the TOT, I had to fill out the form with a payment.  

The information that Airbnb has posted online in their help article only mentions Texas state taxes, so if your county also requires a tax, apparently Airbnb has not yet made an arrangement for that.  In many states, notably Florida, Airbnb does collect state and county taxes.  

I would advise, when you talk to anyone from the Texas Comptroller's office that you ask to speak with a suprevisor since sometimes lower level employees sometimes don't know what is going on. 

I don't remember if I previously sent you this link, but if not, here it is again: 

https://www.airbnb.com/help/article/653/in-what-areas-is-occupancy-tax-collection-and-remittance-by-...

Please let me know what you find out!

[Rahman0]

if AirbnB collects and pays taxes in austin, do I have to report or pay any other taxes? City?