[GUIDE] Florida Sales Tax Tutorial

[Karen1]

To ALL Florida Hosts,

If anyone in the Tax Collector's Offices says that YOU are responsible for your state tax on Airbnb reservations, they are misinformed and giving you old information. Airbnb entered into an agreement with the State of Florida on December 1, 2015, which states that they will collect and remit Florida Transient Tax on all Florida reservations. This tax will be paid in a lump sum by filing one tax return per jurisdiction, with the total combined reservation revenue. Airbnb will not be filing individual forms (such as the DR-1C form) on behalf of hosts. Just know that there are still many people who do not know what Airbnb is, including staff in the local tax offices.  Even after two years, many are not aware of this agreement between the Department of Revenue and Airbnb.

Since there is a lot of confusion over the topic, I wrote a Florida Tax Tutorial.  This is accurate as of September 2017:

Basic Florida Tax Info:

The State of Florida taxes short-term rentals (housing rented for 182 days or less) with a Transient Tax. This amount varies per county and consists of the Florida base Sales Tax of 6% plus the county's Discretionary Surtax. Each county may or may not have a Discretionary Surtax. This tax ranges from .5 to 1.5%. The 2017 Discretionary Surtax by county is found here: 2017-Descretionary-Sales-Surtax-Rates-DR-15DSS.pdf

Additionally, each county may tax short-term rentals with Tourist Development Tax. As of June 2017, the Tourist Development Tax amounts were:

ALACHUA 5.0%, BAKER 3.0%, BAY 5.0%, BRADFORD 4.0%, BREVARD 5.0%, BROWARD 5.0%, CALHOUN none, CHARLOTTE 5.0%, CITRUS 5.0%, CLAY 3.0%, COLLIER 4.0%, COLUMBIA 5.0%, DESOTO 3.0%, DIXIE 2.0%, DUVAL 6.0%, ESCAMBIA 4.0%, FLAGLER 5.0%, FRANKLIN 2.0%, GADSDEN 2.0%, GILCHRIST 2.0%, GLADES 2.0%, GULF 5.0% Rate will return to 4% on 1/01/20, HAMILTON 3.0%, HENDRY 3.0%, HARDEE 2.0%, HERNANDO 5.0%, HIGHLANDS 2.0%, HILLSBOROUGH 5.0%, HOLMES 2.0%, INDIAN RIVER 4.0%, JACKSON 4.0%, JEFFERSON 2.0%, LAFAYETTE none, LAKE 4.0%, LEE 5.0%, LEON 5.0%, LEVY 2.0%, LIBERTY none, MADISON 3.0%, MANATEE 5.0%, MARION 4.0%, MARTIN 5.0%, MIAMI-DADE 6.0%, MONROE 5.0%, NASSAU 4.0%, OKALOOSA 5.0%, OKEECHOBE 3.0%, ORANGE 6.0%, OSCEOLA 6.0%, PALM BEACH 6.0%, PASCO 2.0%, PINELLAS 6.0%, POLK 5.0%, PUTNAM 4.0%, ST JOHNS 4.0%, ST LUCIE 5.0% Rate will return to 3% on 1/01/43, SANTA ROSA 5.0%, SARASOTA 5.0%, SEMINOLE 5.0%, SUMTER 2.0%, SUWANNEE 3.0% Rate will return to 2% on 7/01/21, TAYLOR 5.0%, UNION none, VOLUSIA 6.0%, WAKULLA 4.0%, WALTON 4.0%, WASHINGTON 3.0%

What tax does Airbnb collect and pay?

Tax is based on your nightly rate plus your cleaning fee. Each Airbnb confirmation email you receive will have the amount of tax collected for that reservation. To find a summary of the collected taxes, go to Hosting / Stats/ Earnings/ View Transaction History/ Gross Earnings and choose a date range.

For all Florida properties, Airbnb collects and remits the Transient Tax (the 6% plus your county's Discretionary Surtax).

Additionally, Airbnb collects the Tourist Development Tax in SOME counties because that tax is administered by the state for those counties. Currently the 24 counties are: Bradford, Citrus, Columbia, Desoto, Dixie, Flagler, Franklin, Gadsden, Gilchrist, Glades, Hamilton, Hardee, Hendry, Holmes, Jackson, Jefferson, Levy, Madison, Okaloosa, Okeechobee, Pasco, Sumter, Wakulla, and Washington.

Recently, other counties entered into their own agreements with Airbnb. Tourist Development Tax is now also collected and remited for Brevard, Broward, Hernando, Hillsborough, Indian River, Lee, Leon, Miami-Dade*, Orange, Pinellas, Polk, Putnam, Santa Rosa, Sarasota, Taylor, and the city of Surfside.  *Note, there are exceptions to Miami-Dade county. See source below.

What tax do you have to collect and submit?

At minimum, nothing (depending on your county) and at maximum, your county's Tourist Development Tax.

If you rent your Florida property by using only Airbnb, you must delete your account with the Florida Department of Revenue. You only need the FL DOR account if you offer your property on other platforms where taxes are not paid for you.  If you keep an account, DOR will expect payment. Do not pay double taxes!

If your county is not listed as one where Airbnb accepts and pays Tourist Development Tax, then you need to visit your county's Tax Collector's Office. They may require you to apply for an Occupational License and they will instruct you on how to pay the Tourist Development Tax.

Also, just recently, Airbnb stopped rounding to the nearest dollar and is not calculating payments, taxes and fees to the dollar and cents.  Please let me know if you find any errors in this information.

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

https://www.airbnb.com/help/article/481/how-do-taxes-work-for-hosts

https://www.airbnb.com/help/article/654/what-is-occupancy-tax--do-i-need-to-collect-or-pay-it

[Phillip119]

Hi, I've seen you say to only one person so far (Ashley) that they need a hotel license in Florida.

Is this true for all counties in Florida? Why wouldn't Airbnb make this information explicitly available?

Also Pasco seems to have separated their tourist development taxes from the state starting Oct 1, 2019 and would like to collect them directly.

http://www.pascotaxes.com/tdt/

Have you heard of this yet?

[Bill936]

We have a new Airbnb rental property in Collier county.

I understand that Airbnb will collect and submit Florida rental tax to the state but I must 

submit any Collier county taxes to the county,  myself ?
please confirm 

[Karen1]

Yes, @Bill936, in Collier County you must collect and remit every month 5% on the total of your nightly rate plus any cleaning and pet fees. Currently (as of November 2019), Airbnb collects only your FL sales tax and your county's discretionary sales surtax (7%) . You should call your county's tax collector and ask how to get a business license. They will gladly get you set up, and they will send you the forms to submit monthly with your Tourist Development Tax (aka Bed Tax).

[Mari97]

Hello

Hosts in Miami Beach must collect and remit 4% resort tax including cleaning to the City if Miami Beach 

Hosts must remit said tax no later than the 20th day of each month. 

If there is 0 income, a report must be submitted to avoid a $50 penalty

[Modern19]

Hi Mari97. Could you please explain more about this process? Is the 4% resort tax not taken already automatically by Airbnb? And if it is do hosts need to still report to the city their earnings? Also how do you report it? Thank you so much for your help. 

[Brian1613]

In Palm Beach County, you must pay the 6.0% tax, and Airbnb does not collect it. The easy solution is to use the Community Fee option of additonal charges, and add the 6.0% charge to recoup the tax.

[Karen1]

That feature might only be for hosts with 6 or more properties. I went to my listing through my computer's browser and under "Pricing". Sadly, there was no "Community Fee" option.

[Juan81]

Hi could you please elaborate on how to use the community fee option, where an we find it.

Thanks 

[Shorecrest0]

Hi Karen,  I have a property in City of Miami in Miami-Dade County.  My guest is charged 13% tax.  I thought Airbnb collects all the taxes and pays to the government.  So I didn't register with DOR.   Then I was told I still need to pay business tax.  What is business tax?  To whom should I pay to?   Do I still need to register with DOR for business tax?  I read the whole thread but I didn't see this topic and I appreciate your reply.

[Karen1]

@Shorecrest0, Miami is very restrictive and has regulated short-term rentals very heavily. One regulation is that all owners or operators of businesses in Miami-Dade must obtain a business license.  You will need to contact your county's Tax Collector to learn how to apply for this license.  All hosts in Florida are also supposed to obtain a business license from the State of Florida Department of Hotels and Restaurants.

The good news is that your county does allow Airbnb to collect and pay for you the local tax (aka, Tourist Development tax). The 13% tax that Airbnb collects consists of 6% FL State Sales tax, 1 % Discretionary Surtax for Miami-Dade and 6% Tourist Development Tax.

You can read this link to learn about other Miami-Dade regulations: https://www.mashvisor.com/blog/airbnb-miami-regulations-2019/ 

Hope this helps. Good luck. - Karen

[Christian1193]

Hi Guys, I've been having the same issue with Airbnb and its been very frustrating to have to deal with them and the fact that their solutions to collecting the development taxes in Osceola is so archaic. The only solution offered is to have the guest pay when they check in or start up a resolution to collect this. Yo and everyone here doing this knows this is not an option. No one will be doing this for every single reservation. I found a work-around but we need to press Airbnb to allow us to "Add a Tax" like many of there documentation says we should be able to. It even goes as far as saying we can opt-out of having them remit those taxes and us putting in our own taxes to be collected and send to us (host) for us to remit the appropriate tax agencies on our own.

What I found is that if you have professional hosting tools you can add linen fee, community fee or resort fees to all you reservations. The problem is that these are only calculated towards the total number of nights reserved and you will always be short on money come tax time because those cleaning fees will add up very quickly. I found that since I have to pay development tax fees of 6% I have to charge 9% to be above the curve on each reservation then take out the 6% after the payout to pay these taxes. Now this is just a band-aid we should be able to have the correct amount of taxes charged in the occupancy and tax subject line and not jerry rigging the system to stay current on our taxes.

If we all pressure and call Airbnb with this issue and force them to allow us to "Add a Tax" to our reservations that will solve the problem once in for all.

Help me by calling and demanding to speak with a supervisor to scale-up this issue that at the end of the day is costing us thousands of dollars each year and taking up all the profits assumed by even doing this in the first place.

Thanks,

-Christian

[Christian1193]

One day later after replying to this post, I'm noticing now that Airbnb has quietly increased the occupancy taxes here in Osceola from 7.5% to 15.3%. I've called multiple times now and no one is willing to confirm why they have done it. 

If there is an Airbnb rep reading this please help me answer the following. 

1) Why the increase now, have you realized just now that you were never collecting the taxes correctly for all Osceola county ?

also

2) If you are collecting 15.3% how is this money being divided between the different agencies?

6% for sales revenue, 1.5% discretionary Tax  and the rest to Bruce Vickers Tourisim Development (bed) Tax? If so, you are collecting the wrong amounts again because it should be 6%, 1.5% and 6% to Bruce Vickers a total of 13.5% not 15.3%.

Please help me figuring this out. 

-Christian

[Karen1]

@Christian1193 

Are you sure that you are figuring the tax percentage correctly? All taxes have to be calculated on your nightly rate PLUS any cleaning fees. The Osceola County Tax Collector's website indicates the total tax on short-term rentals should be 13.5 %

I totally agree that we should be able to collect local tax via the platform with an added "Tax amount" line item. But until then, can you check your listing? Airbnb Help section says to verify that your listing is located properly on their site. Then, verify if they collect taxes for your area by the following:

"How to check your listings for eligibility

1. Go to Your Listings on airbnb.com and select a listing
2. Click Manage listing
3. Click Local taxes and laws
4. If we collect taxes for your area, you’ll see a default tax collection setting on the page

If there isn't a section for local tax collection under Local taxes and laws, we don’t automatically collect and pay on your behalf for that listing."

If Airbnb is collecting 15.3 %, you and everyone else in your county should send a direct message to @AirbnbHelp using Twitter. I have had good success in getting help from their Twitter support group. 

[Christian1193]

Hi Karen, 

Yes, I've checked and double checked that. I actually have a pricing calculator I used to setup all the prices for my listings and it definitely takes into account what the customer pays as a total amount and what is paid out to me afterwards. I like to keep a running total of the actual amount customers pay because that is the true value of what guests are willing to pay for my home. That way if I ever have anyone outside of the platform I will charge them what they would be paying to Airbnb minus a small discount because now that is extra profit for me.  

[Christian1193]

Regarding the 15.3% they now changed it back to 7.5% after my multiple claims. But still this doesn't fix anything in terms of me collecting the other 6% that is still missing to pay to the county. 

Anyone from Airbnb here please help!

We should be able to add a tax or have you collect the correct amount for taxes. 

-Christian