Just got an affidavit form from my county in Virginia in the US. It is asking for the company name, point of contact, address, phone number and email of “accommodations intermediaries” to that it can impose a new VA law requiring the intermediaries to collect and submit local transient occupancy tax.
They helpfully provided a full copy of the new law and I can “use additional pages if necessary” to report my information.
This should be a fun phone call to Airbnb & VRBO to get their point of contact, etc. for my county.
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I messaged Airbnb support, which replied: “I’m forwarding your inquiry to a member of our team who can better assist you. They’ll be getting in touch with you soon.”
I’m thinking Brian Chesky’s contact info should do. Hmmm, now, who’s the CEO of VRBO?
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The VRBO bot is having conniptions and attempting to “cancel my booking.” Last communication: “The agent has ended the chat.”
I’m in VA too. I just assumed when I signed up here all taxes were being taken out and Air forwarding them to city/state.
Nope, just the Virginia state sales tax. Which they confusingly refer to as “lodging tax” on your host reporting.
Your locality may or may not have a lodging tax, which Airbnb is currently not collecting if applicable.
OK, surprise, I’ve gotten an address and phone number from Airbnb Support to put on my affidavit. I rescind my snark. No point of contact name or email, however.
But wait, haha, it’s the corporate HQ address and phone number. Blimey, ain’t this ridiculous.
Just looked and it’s 6% for this county. Kind of surprised that when I got a business license here there was no mention that there were local taxes.
Don’t know why I didn’t pay better attention, when doing this in AZ, monthly I paid lodging taxes.
Wait, where are you? Clarke County, Abingdon, Alexandria, and Blacksburg do have arrangements for Airbnb to collect their transient occupancy (lodging) tax.
Just saw the same information, but I’m in Augusta Co. Think it’s odd if they take the tax from guests from some localities, why not all.
Because it wasup to the locale to institute a contract with Airbnb, I presume.
I assume they will ALL be doing this, however ineptly or bureaucratically, due to the recent passage of VA law 58.1-3826, “Scope of transient occupancy tax,” which says that “the accommodation provider shall collect” TOT.
It will be good once sorted, as I’ve been dutifully paying the TOT and NOT charging my guests.
OK forum, sorry for the geo-specific hijack.
Carry on.
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Just called the town to see what the deal was and because I only rent to 2 people, I don’t owe any occupancy taxes. If it was for 4 or more, those taxes would apply.
Sigh of relief.
Because some jurisdictions, like my city-county, refuse Air’s method of payment, which is to cut one check and tell the city “here’s your tax” without telling them which hosts paid and how much.
So they finally now allow me to enter the tax amounts and they bill the guest at booking, and the payout indicates a passthrough for the tax (so it won’t be subject to income tax). I just put that amount in my .025%(!) interest bearing holding account until I make my quarterly tax payment.
Went through our state starting an occupancy tax a couple years ago. Having the state impose a statewide tax went relatively smoothly with Airbnb working directly with the state. When municipalities and tourist regions starting imposing their own it was a nightmare.
