Post by High Priestess on Mar 31, 2016 16:08:08 GMT
See this article:
www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-airbnb-los-angeles-study-20160330-story.html
If property owners who rent out homes and apartments on Airbnb were to pay taxes as hotels do, the city of Los Angeles would collect an extra $41 million each year.
That is one of the conclusions of a study commissioned by the American Hotel and Lodging Assn., the trade group for the country’s hotel industry, which has pushed for greater regulation of Airbnb and other home-sharing sites.
“Hotels compete on a daily basis to provide the best guest services,” said Vanessa Sinders, the senior vice president of government affairs for the trade group. “We welcome competition but we want to make sure there is a legal and level playing field.”
My two cents: it bothers me how these kinds of comments are framed. They contain the presumption that Airbnb hosts SHOULD always be paying hotel taxes -- something I actually think is not a fair assumption. Yes, cities in general will require hosts to pay such taxes, and so I don't think there is much we can do about this, but I will always philosopically and politically reject the propriety of this. I don't think we SHOULD be paying such taxes, since we are not hotels. So to me, to say LA is losing out on $41 million in taxes from hosts is sort of like saying LA is losing out by not stealing more from its residents. Or by not raising all property taxes or sales taxes by 5% -- or coming up with other bogus taxes to pilfer from preyed upon citizens.
www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-airbnb-los-angeles-study-20160330-story.html
If property owners who rent out homes and apartments on Airbnb were to pay taxes as hotels do, the city of Los Angeles would collect an extra $41 million each year.
That is one of the conclusions of a study commissioned by the American Hotel and Lodging Assn., the trade group for the country’s hotel industry, which has pushed for greater regulation of Airbnb and other home-sharing sites.
“Hotels compete on a daily basis to provide the best guest services,” said Vanessa Sinders, the senior vice president of government affairs for the trade group. “We welcome competition but we want to make sure there is a legal and level playing field.”
My two cents: it bothers me how these kinds of comments are framed. They contain the presumption that Airbnb hosts SHOULD always be paying hotel taxes -- something I actually think is not a fair assumption. Yes, cities in general will require hosts to pay such taxes, and so I don't think there is much we can do about this, but I will always philosopically and politically reject the propriety of this. I don't think we SHOULD be paying such taxes, since we are not hotels. So to me, to say LA is losing out on $41 million in taxes from hosts is sort of like saying LA is losing out by not stealing more from its residents. Or by not raising all property taxes or sales taxes by 5% -- or coming up with other bogus taxes to pilfer from preyed upon citizens.