Tag Archives: AirBnB

Kent County, Airbnb announce hotel tax agreement

3-bottom, Local Business, Recreation,

 

WKTV Staff

ken@wktv.org

 

Kent County and Airbnb announced on July 18 a tax agreement authorizing the company to collect hotel taxes on behalf of its Kent County hosts and remit the revenue directly to the county.

With the tax agreement in place, Kent County will fully benefit from people visiting the region and staying longer through home sharing. Effective Aug. 1, Airbnb will automatically collect and remit the Kent County Lodging Excise tax (also known as the hotel/motel tax) for taxable bookings, making the process seamless and efficient for local Airbnb hosts and the county.

 

“As a global platform, helping hosts meet their income tax obligations is just one of the steps we have taken to contribute to the communities our hosts and guests call home,” Airbnb states on their website. “Over the last four years, we’ve also partnered with hundreds of governments around the globe to make it easier for our hosts and guests to pay their fair share of hotel and tourist taxes. By April 15, 2018, we will have entered into tax agreements with over 370 jurisdictions globally, and collected and remitted more than $592 million in hotel and tourist taxes throughout the world.”

 

Kent County is the latest of those tax agreements.

 

“We appreciate the cooperation of Airbnb in helping us achieve this agreement,” Ken Parrish, Kent County Treasurer, said in supplied material. “The Voluntary Collection Agreement allows Airbnb hosts to operate without having to try to calculate occupancy taxes. It also simplifies collection and audit processes; we have one solo, corporate taxpayer rather than many individual business operators. This agreement provides transparency and fairness for all of our lodging partners as well.”

 

The county’s top administrator also praised the agreement.

“I’m pleased to see this cooperative arrangement come together, thanks to the efforts of Airbnb staff and our teams in the Treasurer’s Office, the Administrator’s Office and Corporate Counsel,” Wayman Britt, Kent County Administrator/Controller, said in supplied material. “Our hotel/lodging industry should be treated fair and equitably. The arrangement with Airbnb helps in covering the expense for increased tourism and promotes economic well-being for our region.”

Collecting and remitting hotel taxes can be incredibly complicated. The rules were designed for traditional hospitality providers and large hotel corporations with teams of lawyers and accountants.

 

This marks Airbnb’s third tax agreement in Michigan.

 

The company previously collaborated last year with the Michigan Treasury Department on a historic tax partnership to collect and remit the Michigan use tax on all taxable bookings throughout the state. More recently, Airbnb and Genesee County announced an agreement allowing Airbnb to collect their local occupancy tax.

 

About 22,000 Airbnb guests experienced Kent County in 2017, which reflected 76 percent year-over-year growth.

 

For more information on Airbnb, visit airbnb.com .

Per residents’ request, Wyoming City Council considers short-term rental ordinance

3-bottom, Citizen Journalism, City of Wyoming, , , , ,
Wyoming City Council will consider an ordinance on short-term rentals at its next meeting set for March 19.

 

By Joanne Bailey-Boorsma

joanne@wktv.org

 

“It’s noisy, it’s loud,” said Steven Christensen of an AirBnB located near his home along Mayflower Drive in Wyoming. “You are trying to sit in the living room, trying to relax and people are coming and going, slamming doors all the time. It’s just loud. I had one time with a wedding … I have to go to work at five and they are out there at three o’clock in the morning hooting and hollering it up.”

 

Christensen and his neighbor Andrew Hanselman attended a Wyoming City Council work session earlier this year to encourage the city to host public hearings on short-term rentals such as AirBnBs, VRBO, and HomeAway, in an effort to create a city ordinance to regulate them.

 

At its March work session, the Wyoming City Council reviewed an ordinance that would prohibit all short term rentals for non-owner occupied homes. The proposed ordinance will be presented at Monday’s regular council meeting, which is at 7 p.m. at the Wyoming City Hall, 1155 28th St. SW.

 

“So, if I owned a house, I could rent my room or a room in the house, the basement or something as a short-term rental and that would be completely acceptable,” said City Manager Curtis Holt as he explained the proposed ordinance. “If I own a house and I bought a house just for the idea of an AirBnB that would not be acceptable. If I own a house and let’s say I would be out-of-town for long periods of time and I wanted to hold that house, it would not be acceptable to do short-term rentals with it.”

 

Holt acknowledged that the ordinance would address the one property the city has received two complaints about. In general, the city has not received a lot of complaints about short-term rentals. He said in a recent search, city staff found about six properties listed as short-term rentals. The most the city has had at one time is around 12, Curtis said.

 

“Well, understand this short-term rental issue is far more prevalent in tourist destination type towns…,” Curtis said.

 

The tougher challenge would be enforcement, Curtis said. Mayor Jack Poll said he could see that as if he goes away for the weekend and his children came by to stay, it would be tough to determine if they were renting or just house guests.

 

Still several council members liked the simplicity of the proposed ordinance and it gave something for the city to refer to when a property owner is blatantly obvious in not following the rules.

 

The ordinance could have a short life. At the state level, both the House and the Senate have bills — HB5403 and SB329 respectively — in committee that would prohibit municipalities enacting zoning ordinance bans of short-term rentals. Rep. Steve Johnson said during a January Government Matters, cities would still be able to regulate short-term rentals through such means as noise, advertising, traffic or other conditions. The house bill remains in committee, Johnson said.

 

“There is a battle going with one side on the private property rights of an individual who owns a piece of property versus local control and what control a local municipality can have on it,” State Senator Peter MacGregor said of the proposed Senate bill. In the past couple of months, there has been little movement on either the Senate or House bill.

 

Holt said municipalities have several concerns about the state bills. It is the belief of many community leaders, including those in the cities of Wyoming and Kentwood, that to avoid inspection requirements, landlords would change their leases to 28 days or less.

 

“The majority of people who own residential properties do a great job,” said Mayor Stephen Kepley during the January Government Matters meeting, “but then you have have five percent who don’t and if they don’t have to do something they aren’t going to do something.”

 

To prevent a “one bad apple” scenario, Kepley said city officials are hoping to prevent that loophole so as to keep the neighborhoods nice. Currently the City of Kentwood does not have any regulations on short-term rentals.

 

AirBnB has opposed outright banning of short-term rentals but does support fair regulations. In an October 2017 Crain’s Detroit Business op-ed piece, a representative for AirBnB said “by taking the nuclear option off the table (the banning of short-term rentals), this law would encourage communities to collaborate with local hosts on commonsense rules…”

 

The most popular Michigan destinations for AirBnB travelers is Detroit followed by Ann Arbor and then Traverse City. Traverse City does regulate short-term rentals like bed and breakfasts. Traverse City’s ordinance requires owners must be present when renters are there, be licensed and cannot be within 1,000 feet of one another.

 

Last summer, AirBnB did strike a deal with the Michigan Treasury to collect use taxes. It is estimated that about $1.5 million would be generated through the tax. The move also will allow the state to track and collect the six percent use tax that applies to nightly rental charges on stays in Michigan hotels for periods of less than a month. However the six percent use tax, currently, does not come back to the municipalities.