By law, I must itemize tax... no way to do this on Airbnb

[Deborah179]

Kind of pathetic that I can't contact AirBnB directly with this problem. I know the "community" can't help here but this appears to be my only option.

I just received my Placer County (California) TOT tax certificate and rules. According to the law, I MUST itemize a 10% tax and add it to the amount I collect and the guest must have a receipt which shows the tax as a separate item. I cannot say it's "included" or "absorbed" by the operator.

It doesn't appear that there is any way to add this tax to the amount and have it itemized for the guest. So, I am technically in violation of the law even when I pay the tax properly out of my receipts.

Could we PLEASE have a way to add a tax amount? We already have a way to add a cleaning fee, etc. We need a tax amount line.

Here is the relevant section of the Placer County code:

4.16.050 Collection—Advertising that payment of tax not required prohibited.

     Each operator shall collect the tax imposed by this article to the same extent and at the same time as the rent is collected from every transient. The amount of tax shall be separately stated from the amount of the rent charged, and each transient shall receive a receipt for payment from the operator. No operator of a hotel shall advertise or state in any manner, whether directly or indirectly, that the tax or any part thereof will be assumed or absorbed by the operator or that it will not be added to the rent or that, if added, any part will be refunded except in the manner hereinafter provided. (Ord. 5006-B, 1999; prior code § 21.5)

[Deborah179]

After much frustrating searching on the web site, I finally found a way to send them an email. I received a response today.

Basically it says that they do collect taxes in some areas but not in my area and no plans to do so.

They also have no plans to allow users to add an itemized tax charge to the booking.

So... I guess we're out of luck.

[John-and-Heather0]

@Deborah179it is very common, and I found the solution in community center and applied it to our rentals.

Although first, I should say there are HUNDREDS of posts complaining about this, so please keep complaining. It is ridiculous this can't just be a line item added by the host.

Here the current work around:

In your RULES state, "Price does not include all tax. We must separately collect [xy city, county] occupancy tax of 10%, paid through AirBNB after you book and before you check in."

Remind guest of your rules in your welcome message.

Go to reservations, click "report a problem." Its badly named, but sends you to resolution center.

Select the guest and click "request money" and "extra services."

Ask for the amount of the tax and send a note reminding of the tax. Ask guest to "accept" to pay the tax.

Note when guest pays, there is no deducation or service fee, so that really helps.

If they don't pay, don't let them check in.

This has gone pretty smoothly for us. We only had one guest try to be sneaky "oh I already paid that" when he hadn't--but that same guest was very sneaky about violating occupancy limits as well. (Overshared about all of his family, we were supposed to count up the names and calculate that the total coming to our house was 2 more than allowed, rather than asking directly."

But, keep complaining. AirBNB will either get its act together and make it easy for hosts to comply, or all of the states will re-write their laws to make the taxes AirBNB's responsibility instead of yours (Oregon already did this at the State level; other states are following suit).

[Mary269]

I have used Square for taking Visa at the door. But when I remind guests of the rule that the tax will be paid directly by them to me on arrival, I remind them of the amount in cash or check, with the amount for Visa being 3% added for the Visa fee. Glad the dems changed that in the Dodd- Frank bill which allows us to charge the fees to the person using the Visa. Everyone has used cash so far. They do not want to pay 9.5% plus 3%. Works great! 

[Mary269]

You can reach and request your City Treasurer- which is where the tax goes usually ( state tax is another matter) to pressure Airbnb to put a line in for tax. Airbnb would take care of our taxes then and that is another department for them. Our city managers do not want all that tax money to go into OUR accounts because many hosts would dodge paying. They want airbnb to collect it and deposit it into the city account. Makes sense.

Here in Madison, WI the city wants the tax and cannot collect if people are flying under the radar. So the mayor and treasurer are pushing Airbnb to make this a line item. Airbnb doesn't want this to happen because many hosts could not handle filing and the process of getting a license would mean that many hosts would fold. Here a host cannot make food for guests and providing alcohol is problematic. Many advertise food: such as Muffin Meg who is in the top 100 in Madison. You can't do that. You can offer someone a muffin, but you cannot advertise like this to attract people. So she would have to change as many would have to change. So it is more complex than adding a line for tax. I wish they would do it too because after we pay sales tax, occupancy or room tax, social security on the income as self employed business, and then income tax (not to say there is wear and tear on our homes) if we are lucky there is half of what is charged to keep and add to our livelihood. This is the reality.

[Joy1260]

Mary, I’m in Madison as well. How are you handling your current tax situations with the city? Do you have to obtain a license? 

[Amy38]

@Deborah179 just message them when they book the amount you will have to collect from them in taxes.  If they give you a check, that is their receipt, if not, just scribble a receipt on a piece of paper or email them the same.....received x $ from jane doe for hotel taxes on x date.

this is not a real problem.

[Em4]

@Deborah179 i believe the price advertised via any accommodation website includes tax.  all i do is separate out the tax (15% for NZ).  many free invoice statement websites are available.  i provide every guest with an invoice.  with BNB this is now left in their room.  with other accommodation websites who do not collect payment directly from the guest prior to arrival, the invoice is provided at check out when they pay.

the actual price paid does not change from the website.  so you will need to ensure all the costs you want to cover are included in the price advertised.

the rip off situation here is that all these websites base their fee on the inclusive of tax instead of exclusive of tax price.  these websites are the only businesses i am aware of in NZ that not just do that but have gotten away with it.

🙂

Em

Hukawai Lodge

Franz Josef, NZ

https://www.airbnb.co.nz/rooms/15418840

[Deborah179]

Thanks for this idea.

I think an itemized invoice should address the problem.

/

Mark and Deb

[Em4]

@Deborah179  my pleasure.  more importantly the invoice system forms the bones of your own book keeping system.  here we pay any remaining gst back to the government every month or whatever the system you opt in to.  consequently, the invoice system is a record of the tax collected.

🙂

Em

Hukawai Lodge

Franz Josef, NZ

https://www.airbnb.co.nz/rooms/15418840

[David3001]

Hi Deborah,

I am in Squaw with the exact same problem. Just spent an hour on a chat with Airbnb trying to work how we can comply with the law here in Placer. Though they continually assured me that I could add the tax, they never came up with a way to do so. I am now waiting on a manager to get back to me. 

Since Airbnb is planning on an ipo this year, they will do anything to increase income. I expect that they will not comply with the laws of Placer County. Including the tax on the customer check out page will probably hurt their bottom line. Instead they woud prefer their Hosts take the fall.

If I find a way to get this working I will post here.

Dave