San Francisco hosts & FlipKey

Regulations/Tax Issues
1

I asked TripAdvisor/Flipkey before about whether it submits the 14% hotel tax collected on San Francisco listings, and I did NOT get any direct response. TripAdvisor/Flipkey is still NOT recognized by the city of San Francisco as Qualified Website Platform (while Airbnb is), even though they’ve been collecting 14% for almost a year now.

I wonder if other San Francisco hosts have been filing the required MONTHLY bookings and hotel tax report, since TripAdvisor/FlipKey is NOT the Qualified Website Platform recognized by the city.

3

Mr. FlipKey:

If you are a real FlipKey host, you will know FlipKey collected the mandatory 14% San Francisco hotel tax (or other percentage in other cities with short term rental law), and NEVER released to the hosts, only the rental cost and other fee set up by the hosts (just like Airbnb).

Now go back ask your boss again whether this collected tax has been indeed submitted to these cities.

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(post withdrawn by author, will be automatically deleted in 24 hours unless flagged)

1 Like
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Enlighten me. And please answer the question if you’ve received 14% tax, as hosts, for the bookings on FlipKey.

By the way, not everyone in San Francisco is gay, for your information.

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(post withdrawn by author, will be automatically deleted in 24 hours unless flagged)

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You made my day lol.

I hope there will be more readers on this thread.

8

mmmmm confused. I just saw Billy’s another post complaining about Flipkey suspending his account, but here he sounds like an advocate for that platform. I don’t know if he meant to be sarcastic, but his tone certainly suggested that he’s bullying some new user who just joined.

9

First of all, BBM gave an accurate description of the local tax situation, perhaps a bit pithy? Never the less, I do agree with BBM. Airbnb is the only listing site (I know of) with an invoice that does not include a line item for local tax. They do not and will not put in a tax line item (like every other listing site does). They currently only collect the tax in maybe 20 localities in USA and a few other cities around the world. I consider Airbnb’s poorly thought out local tax policy to be, possibly, their ultimate downfall.
By the way…
BBM asked “are you a pirate”, not “are you a gay pirate”. Not all pirates are gay, so I’m not sure where the gay reference came up. Perhaps you are overly sensitive?

10

KIKC, thank you for defending BBM. You do notice that he edited two of his posts, right? Being a newbie here, I forgot to quote him while replying. I am sure konacoconutz, gettingBetter, and a few others read his tirade before he edited away, since there was 30 read of this thread before I log out last night. I also flag his two posts (already edited) as inappropriate, I am sure the system admin here has the audit trail of his posts before the edit.

No, he did not ask “are you a gay pirate”, but his reference to Castro District, and his later comment (again, before the edit) “Wow, you are indeed from Castro district” was insulting, even though he claimed he lived an hour away from San Francisco for two decades.

And then he went on with a tirade in the second edited post, in a very clever amusing way. He dissected my response “Enlighten me. And please answer the question if you’ve received 14% tax, as hosts, for the bookings on FlipKey.” with his repetitive reply, but instead accused me of being repetitive:

“Enlighten me”:
his insulting words
"please answer the question …“
his insulting words
"Enlighten me”:
his insulting words
"please answer the question …“
his insulting words
"Enlighten me”:
his insulting words
"please answer the question …“
his insulting words
"Enlighten me”:
his insulting words
"please answer the question …"
his insulting words
You are being repetitive, I answered your questions …

I went through some of his old posts, he does not seem like an angel here and very confrontational sometimes. Now KIKC, after all the insults and mockery, he called me “an angry little man”. If you are fond of his so called humor or sarcasm or occastional outburst of rudeness (to me in this case), good for you.

And if that’s your way of welcoming newcomers on this forum, I will step away, there’s plenty of other resources, home-sharing forums to resort to if I need advice. Good day.

11

By the way, KIKC, if you do not host in a city or area with required hotel tax, you should do more research before the assertion.

In San Francisco, Airbnb and Flipkey both collected the mandatory 14% hotel tax (on Flipkey, tax is not an editable field, but read-only 14%). Neither Airbnb nor Flipkey release the collected tax to the hosts, but submit directly to the city of San Francisco.

The difference is: Airbnb is Qualified Website Platform recognized by the city (by provided detailed individual booking data on top of tax being submitted), Flipkey is NOT: Flipkey claims that it submits the tax to the city on behalf of the hosts, but apparently not complied with the city short term rental office (possibly still not provide individual booking data, like Airbnb resisted in the beginning), hence my initial question in this thread.

12

It seems like you’re accusing Billy Bob of working for Flipkey (and I can assure you, he does not work for or advocate for Flipkey) but what’s funny is that you sound like you work for AirBNB! “Qualified Website Platform recognized by the city” sounds like phrasing that is trying to scare hosts into exclusively using AirBNB who BTW, seems to have also totally fd up the tax issues, as well.

My husband wants me to just pull our one little listing off of AirBNB (the only platform I use) until the tax issues get worked out.

13

chicagohost, nobody is trying to “scare hosts into exclusively using AirBNB”, I was simply stating the fact that applied to the city of San Francisco. Really, you used the word ‘scare’, where did you get that from? my tone or somewhere in my comment? If so, I do apologize if you felt that way.

I believe I just asked a question here in my original post. Despite his misunderstanding (again, please verify with other hosts whose city has mandatory hotel tax collected, he ended his comment with “are you a responsible Business Owner, or are you a pirate?”. Really, what did I do, if he can tell from my original post, deserved to be called out as a possible ‘pirate’? At that point, I didn’t feel I need to be friendly and I called him ‘Mr. Flipkey’, of course, I know he’s not a Flipkey troll. But his first post indicate in every way that I am the one who might break the law (again despite his misunderstanding).

Apparently, he’s got some friends here. Consider this my last post.

14

Michael – So in Chicago, there is a hotel accommodation tax (4.5%) that is being collected by AirBNB and sent to the city but it’s not clear to me whether this particular tax is tied to my tax ID number. If it is not and AirBNB is just sending one large sum to the city, it seems I need to pay it on my own and out of my own pocket since the guests are long gone. This is in addition to state and income taxes, of course.

I’m trying to track down more info before I continue renting my unit. This sounds quite scandalous in regards to Flipkey – they have not been paying the tax to the city or they’re just not doing it in a manner that absolves hosts from filing paperwork and a “second payment” of the same tax? This is apparently what is happening in Florida, but with AirBNB.