
Airbnb makes small admission on tax issue, saying its hosts should pay - yapcguy
http://www.sfbg.com/politics/2013/10/04/airbnb-makes-small-admission-tax-issue-saying-its-hosts-should-pay
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nostromo
People have been making short-term rentals on CraigsList for over a decade,
yet nobody expects them to collect hotel taxes.

To expect Airbnb research hotel laws and taxes in every country they operate
in seems like an undue burden.

In fact, it's such a burden, that I'm sure Airbnb will _support_ it in a few
years time as a way to raise the barriers to entry on their industry.

~~~
badclient
Craigslist does not collect payment to facilitate the stay.

They do not offer insurance and serve as mediator during disputes.

They do not operate concierge services.

They operate _significantly less_ like a hotel than airbnb.

~~~
belorn
Actually, Craigslist _do_ collect payment for facilitate the stay _if_ its an
apartment in New York. $10 per listing
([http://www.craigslist.org/about/help/posting_fees](http://www.craigslist.org/about/help/posting_fees)).

~~~
dangrossman
A property owner buying an advertisement is not the same as a renter making a
rental payment. These transactions are not at all alike.

~~~
SilasX
They're _somewhat_ alike in that the economic incidence of a tax on rentals
will fall (in different proportions) on both of them, and in ways that the tax
authorities can't control.

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briandear
TLDR; NYC and San Fran, we already pay enough of your bullshit taxes.

Let's take an imaginary trip to New York City..

Fly on an airplane to LGA -- pay Federal Taxes on the ticket approaching 50%.
Pay a TSA "fee," pay an "Airport Use Fee," Pay a car rental tax of often 20%
on top of the state and local sales taxes. Plus a parking tax of over 19%. If
you take a taxi instead, the city charges a $0.50 tax on any trip within NYC,
plus sales tax is automatically contained within the fare itself. Plus the
driver gets to pay city taxes on the income from that fare as well and
gasoline taxes on the fuel used as well as the insanely expensive cost of the
taxi medallion itself. We're not even at the hotel yet. Perhaps you find a
cheaper ticket flying into Newark? Cool, pay a Port Authority $13 toll just
for using the Holland tunnel, though you do get to save on the $0.50 city taxi
surcharge.

Once you're at the hotel, however you get there you get to pay the following:
New York State Sales Tax, New York City Sales Tax, and New York State Hotel
Unit Fee $1.50 per unit per day.

I haven't even had a chance to buy a slice of pizza yet and already I've paid
some entity or another a significant amount of money in taxes. That means that
the my travel budget of x dollars is now reduced by y dollars, which means
that is y dollars less that I have to spend on actually increasing economic
activity within the city. Which means that the businesses I would have
purchased from have y dollars in fewer sales which means that they will pay
both less in sales taxes, but also less in personal and business income taxes.
And since I'm getting less value from my total travel budget, the likelihood
that I'll travel to NYC any more than necessary is far diminished, thus
leading to a overall net loss for the city.

If you notice, anytime there is anything innovative (Airbnb, Uber, etc) within
a city, they always are angling for a way to tax it. Perhaps if those lunatics
in city government (especially NYC and San Fran) realize that the reason their
cities are so expensive is because of the cumulative effect of all of this
nickel and diming.

Want affordable housing for "normal" people in NYC? End rent control. There
are people in 3 bedroom, nice apartments in Soho, paying $500 per month, and
in the same exact building, market rents are $5500 per month because the
landlord has to subsidize the loss on the $500 apartment.

And now NYC is crying about losing their occupancy taxes on Airbnb? As a
former NYC resident I would like to cry about seeing police officer's driving
$90,000 cars off-duty and using their "Police Official Business" placards to
avoid paying parking fees. When I worked at General Assembly, I would see
high-end Jaguars and Cadillacs parked in front of our building on 23rd street
with police placards. While our unemployed students would have to go
downstairs every few hours to stuff yet more money into the meter.

NYC and San Francisco -- you can go suck an egg when it comes to collecting an
occupancy tax for Airbnb.

------
eriksank
With anonymous crypto-currencies thrown into the fray, the next version of
AirBnB -- that is undoubtedly already somewhere in the making -- may be
entirely off-limits to this kind local government requests. Anybody can see
today already that it is "game over" on quite a few older forms of taxation.
The internet has started treating money as just information and ,therefore,
taxation as just a form of censorship. It will just begin to route around that
too.

------
testdrive5
Wow, even after you invest heavily initially to buy a house with your own
hard-earned money, you are still supposed to pay the government a cut for
renting it? What has this world turned into! Shouldn't YOU be the one who
should decide how you spend YOUR money, for renting out YOUR property?

~~~
auctiontheory
Perhaps. Did you use any of the resources and infrastructure of the economy
and society to earn that money? Did you in any way use or depend on the legal
system? The financial system? The roads? Internet? Phones? The financial
system? Law and order? Was your education in any way supported by public
funds?

If you can answer no to every question, is the same also true for all of your
paying customers?

~~~
briandear
I pay taxes. That doesn't mean that I owe the government for every
accomplishment that I've achieved. You seem to subscribe to Obama's "You
didn't build it" statement.

You also fail to acknowledge that a large majority of the spending you've
described could be privately run. I'm not suggesting that it should be,
however, it's possible some of it could be. If I went to a private school
supported by no government money, does that mean I ought to pay taxes to that
private school if I happen to become a billionaire? After all, if it weren't
for that school, I wouldn't have the education to have built something that
made me a billionaire.

Well that's bullshit. I pay a gas tax to drive on the road. I pay a telephone
excise tax as well as state and local taxes. I also pay sales tax. I pay
property tax, I pay school taxes. I pay taxes on buying and registering a car,
I pay taxes when I sell and transfer the title to a car. I pay parking taxes,
airport taxes, airline taxes.

I don't owe government a "debt" because of my success any more than government
owes me anything because of my failure.

~~~
auctiontheory
_That doesn 't mean that I owe the government for every accomplishment that
I've achieved. You seem to subscribe to Obama's "You didn't build it"
statement._

I didn't say you owe the government for every accomplishment. But perhaps I
have a different perspective, which is hard to convey over a message board,
from having traveled and lived in several countries where the government does
not enable the infrastructure (legal, financial, etc.) for businesses to
thrive that we enjoy in the US.

Unless you believe that Americans are genetically superior Übermensch, you
have to give some credit to "the system" for making the success of this
economy, relative to most of the world, possible. And your taxes, to the
extent that they are wisely spent, support that system and ensure its
survival.

