this post was submitted on 12 May 2024
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My office regulates airbnbs for the city and it's very hard to do anything about it. None of the rental platforms will work with us - we've sent them about a million notices that they're collecting the wrong tax amount and they don't even bother to respond, and they just send a check every quarter but refuse to break it out by address/owner. They won't provide any data on what addresses are being rented, either. Apparently some other cities have successfully sued airbnb, but for a small city with a correspondingly small budget, that's an expense that's hard to justify to taxpayers.
We have some owners that are great - they get licensed right away, get their inspections done, no problem. Then there are other people who have done things like dig out their crawlspace themselves and turn it into non-conforming bedrooms with no egress windows - no permits or inspections, of course, and an engineer basically said the entire thing was in danger of collapsing any minute. Or the person who had a buddy do a bunch of unlicensed electrical work that was so bad the city couldn't even let the owner stay there until it was fixed. I honestly wouldn't stay in an airbnb now, having seen what I've seen - people will absolutely put renters at risk to make a buck. And we can go after them but only if we know it's happening.
I'd personally love it if rental platforms were forced to provide owner data to cities/states, and for cities to tax the shit out of rentals that aren't also owner-occupied, but I'm not in charge and the people with money have a vested interest in making sure that doesn't happen. It sucks.
Cops would rather beat up college students and the unhoused than go after landlords.
Ah, yes. We don't have money because collecting taxes would be too expensive. Classic.
EDIT:
https://www.businessinsider.com/irs-tax-audits-recover-12-dollars-for-every-dollar-spent-2023-6?op=1
I mean, paying to sue a massive company that definitely has more (and probably better) attorneys than we do in order to collect a few thousand dollars more a year in sales tax isn't necessarily the best use of city funds. If we were a bigger city, it would make more sense, but it would take us years just for the taxes to cover what we'd spend in attorneys fees and staff time. I don't like that that's the reality, but I can see why the idea isn't popular.
Also, the police aren't involved in regulating short-term rentals. I'm no fan of cops, but this is entirely civil and they have no part in this particular issue.
Is it not tax evasion/fraud? In the US, either can bring criminal charges. For a smaller municipality, is there no assistance available from higher government?
No clue - most of that is either a department I'm not in and don't know much about, or it's way over my head. I'm just a mid-level peon. And politicians are the ones who have to give us the tools to actually do our jobs and all of these companies have deep pockets. That's the biggest impediment.
That's fair.