air bnb paying very little taxes

[Oliver93]

Is it right that Air Bnb pays no taxes in Austria for incomes, and in France less than 100 000? Even if this is legally correct, I would consider this ethically profoundly wrong, and if that proves to be right, I will stop to do any business with Air bnb, and also advise all my friends to refrain from using Air bnb. Companies should pay taxes for their profits (even if they feel very cool about what they are doing), and taxes should be paid where the value is generated.

What do you think about this?

I hope this discussion will stay visible and get answers also from Air BNB officials.

[Christian65]

Huge banks hide money in Panama and evade taxes. Facebook doesn't pay much either, same for Google. Apple too. Tax havens and evasions - the list goes on.

It's hard to be a conscious consumer in this world where capitalism is both the biggest success as it is the worst sometimes.

Thankfully we have the commission in EU looking at it. 

Airbnb faces EU clampdown for not paying 'fair share' of tax | Business ...

[Oliver93]

Thx for answering. I'm aware that I'm as a single consumer will hurt mostly myself, if I start to boycot on my own all the companies that behave wrong one way or the other. However realizing this behaviour from air bnb I'm rather disappointed and I consider strongly going back to regular hotels and looking for other offers in this field, that show a different approach to taxpaying.  And if many would do so, it would be also economically a good argument to change this policy , I believe ...

[Christian65]

You're rigth. But consumers will also factor in price and fact is that Airbnb is more than often a third the price of a hotel - sometimes even more depending on the region.

Boycotts seldom work. What needs to be done is regulatory policies and govenment intervention. Money talks for big business and regulation is more efficient than anything and EU is working hard on it.

A former minister of Denmark fines Google nearly 3 billion dollars in EU - and those fines work and i'm confident that the EU commision shall begin forcing Airbnb to pay their fair share of taxes but its a work in progress and very tedious.

I'm thankful for not living in America were all the huge corporations are completely unhinged and the politicians are useless and bought by the respective industry and their lobby organizations.

Go for hotels if you like. Just know that there are bad apples everywhere. The Ritz is London didn't pay taxes for nearly 20 years!

Mariott had issues also but I can't remember the details.

Alas, it's hard being a good consumer 🙂

But I totally catch your drift!

[Oliver93]

Oh well, I think I am more disappointed about Air Bnb than I would be about other companies because Air bnb presents itself so cool and friendly and 'we are all one family' ... For my recent journeys I can say that the hotel alternatives I found  are not much more expensive, and often less complicated in handling. I admit though that I woudn't bet a lot on booking.com paying its taxes correctly 😉