I can’t believe that I am the only host with this issue. I have been paying my local city Accommodation tax each month for years. Airbnb announced that they would begin paying it direct beginning in October. Now, I am going round and round with both, town and Airbnb. On the report that we can access in Airbnb on taxes paid, it only shows a lump sum for ALL the taxes collected and who they are paid to. The town wants an itemized report showing an exact number for what Aibnb paid them. VRBO has no problem with this. Their report shows each entity that they paid and the amount. Pretty straight forward. Local town wants something either showing from Airbnb what was paid, or a payment from me. I have explained to Airbnb that this will mean that I am paying taxes 2x each month, basically. They don’t care. I’ve even shown them that it doesn’t seem to be a problem for their competitor by showing a copy of VRBOs report. We are all at a stand off.
Is anyone else having this problem?
Where are you located?
I remember when Airbnb started paying the taxes directly to the city, but they were all lumped together and the city didn’t know who had paid. I had to print out who had stayed with me, income and taxes paid to email to the city every month.
I don’t understand. In my jurisdiction Airbnb collects from EVERY GUEST at reservation and remits to local taxman as an amalgamated lump. Local taxman has an arrangement whereby they can audit the taxpayer (Airbnb) for compliance whenever they wish.
In your jurisdiction – if Airbnb is collecting from everyone, why would there be any question as to whether a certain guest (or host) has or has not paid taxes… unless you are doing taxable rentals on the side without going through Airbnb. I don’t understand why there is any question.
My understanding was that Airbnb submitted the money to the city in a lump sum without listing the names of properties, how many renters and how much they paid. I never saw the behind scenes, was just told by the city I needed to submit a form every month.
If the city knows that Airbnb is collecting for every stay then that must mean that every stay was taxed – and if Airbnb is failing to comply, that’s on them.
Our municipality (and every municipality in British Columbia) has data-sharing with Airbnb if they want to check on taxes collected. I just assumed that this was the standard arrangement
The problem is that while it should be on Airbnb if they aren’t submitting the taxes they charge the guests, I have read many posts from hosts over the years saying their tax depts are coming after the hosts for these taxes.
@mrsblueskies I have been through this business of Airbnb lumping all the taxes together so that it is unclear how much is being collected for each separate tax. In my case, there are only 2 taxes charged to guests- VAT and occupancy tax. It isn’t hard to figure out how much each is, as VAT is 16%, but it would certainly be easier for accounting purposes to see them listed separately.
When I asked Airbnb why they lump them together and call it Occupancy Tax, when all of it isn’t, it took at least 8 back and forths with clueless Airbnb reps before I even got one who understood my question- they kept sending me links to articles about entering my tax info (which of course I had years ago) or about how much taxes I am obligated to pay, until I finally got a rep who understood my question was simply why they don’t list the various taxes separately.
The answer? “That’s just how Airbnb does it.” 
Then the law is poorly written. (What jurisdiction are you in?)
Here the law is clear:
- STR is taxable
- Airbnb has the legal responsibility to collect all taxes on local STR
- hosts are not responsible for collecting those taxes, because the taxable transaction is the payment of funds to Airbnb by the guest, not the payment of funds by Airbnb to the host. If the law allowed for both it is allowing double-dipping
The system in your jurisdiction – there seem to be no safeguards against the taxman double dipping through procedure and collecting twice as much as the law permits. That seems to me sloppy legislation or sloppy procedure.
So what do you do in your reports – just list all your stays and tell the taxman something he already knows: “Airbnb has a legal arrangement with the municipality to collect this tax from each guest and remit that tax revenue directly to the municipal tax collection department, a process that does not in any way involve or obligate hosts in the collection of taxes”?
In my case, in Mexico, I haven’t had an issue as far as tax departments claiming the taxes haven’t been paid. My issue was simply that I wanted Airbnb to show the VAT tax and the state Occupancy tax separately, and questioned them as to why they don’t. Most of the host posts I’ve read where they are being told by their local jurisdictions that they owe taxes that Airbnb is supposed to be submitting have been from US hosts.
The way the taxes work where I live is that Airbnb collects 16% VAT and 4% state occupancy tax from the guests, but releases 8% of the VAT to hosts, that the host is responsible for submitting. But from that 8%, hosts or their accountants can deduct any expenses for which they have an official receipt with their tax number on it that they have paid VAT on, so depending on how much the host has in receipts, they may owe nothing in VAT from that 8% that is released to the host.
And tax returns on businesses in Mexico have to be filed monthly, with any VAT owing paid monthly.
Incompetent government? In AMERICA?
Really???
Nah… couldn’t be.
Because the collection and Airbnb payment began Oct 1 for Charleston County. The county collects 3% and should disperse 1% to the city. Of my 3%, mount pleasant gets 1%. Other cities get different %. So how does the county know how much to keep and how much to disperse? And how do they track submittals from direct bookings too? And since I am API connected I still have to pay the Vrbo amount. It’s all very confusing
AirBnb pays directly to county, I fill out my tax form and put in the gross rents, less the AirBnb rents and pay tax on the difference which accounts for other platforms including direct bookings.
The county changed the form after AirBnb started collecting.
I would have another call with the taxing authority and ask how they want you to account for it. They may just be behind on the forms.
RR
Can’t you go into you payout history and generate a CSV with all the payouts for each reservation? Maybe this would only show what airbnb pays you. But you could give it to the authorities and tell them, “this list of reservations is what the lump sum is for.” Or you could calculate from the CSV the expected collected proper amounts and give it to them and hope it matches.
It get’s tricky with reservations overlapping months. You have to figure out which accounting method airbnb is using. (Usually all reservations starting in a month are paid out for that month). But honestly it seems like airbnb hard codes tax remittance for each jurisdiction. So you never know.
If you go to the payouts for each booking, it does show what was charged to the guest for taxes, how much was withheld and how much in tax was remitted to the host to pay themselves. What it doesn’t show is a breakdown of the taxes for each tax jurisdiction, so you don’t see how much was VAT, state, or local taxes, just a total.
I don’t think that would be acceptable as far as showing it to whatever tax entity is hassling the host.
My point is that it would be VERY easy to calculate in a spreadsheet the values you need using the values you get.
I download the payout CSV every month and calculate whatever I need from it. Total reservations each month, total guests that stayed with me. If you know the lodging total, you can compute any tax based off of it. Even if airbnb won’t do it for you.
Another caveat. Airbnb doesn’t seem to tax the extra guest fee. Which means things are always slightly off what they should be for me.
Also, reminder that the cleaning fee is also not taxed - another reason why guests who complain about it are in the wrong…
Occupancy tax collection and remittance by Airbnb in California - Airbnb Help Center.
This seems to indicate that cleaning fees are taxed in California at least.
Yes, that is true- although they lump all the taxes together, I know that it represents 16% VAT and 4% Occupancy tax. So I and my accountant can separate it, but what I meant was that a tax authority that wants to see some official paper showing what was charged and supposedly remitted by Airbnb may not accept the taxpayer just telling them how much it was.
agreed… but “fake it until they make it” …