Good morning, we just got our first short-term rental up and going, in fact, we have our first guest arriving in two hours. my issue is with the lodging tax. I know VRBO collects what I tell them to and send it to me and then I am responsible for payment, not sure about AirBnB yet, but I'll figure that out. What I am looking for is a service that will take care of the for me. Can anyone recommend a tax-payment service?
Rental Property Investor · The Villages, FL · Member since 2017 · 341 posts · 397 votes
7y
Avalara.com, they will submit you taxes for you for a monthly fee. I do mine myself so I can't speak for whether or not it is worth it. It is not difficult to submit your own, just contact your state taxing authority and they will give you the info you need to start. Congrats on your first booking!
Investor · Roseville, CA · Member since 2016 · 893 posts · 1k+ votes
7y
Congrats on your first STR @Pete Torrez! I was going to recommend MyLodgeTax which looks to be part of Avalara now (or maybe always has been). Here is a more direct link for you to try:
That being said, my TOT is due quarterly and it takes me maybe 20 minutes to do it each quarter. You are going to have to probably download and run the same reports anyway to provide them to file for you so I would personally recommend doing this yourself for the first 6 months and then figure out if you really need a service to do it for you, especially with only one property.
Olympia, WA · Member since 2016 · 8k+ posts · 7k+ votes
7y
So that makes me curious. So far HomeAway and AirBNB have been taking out the taxes and paying them direct. I was able to see the information for each booking.
Rental Property Investor · Chandler, AZ · Member since 2019 · 42 posts · 44 votes
7y
@Michael Baum It depends on your state. In AZ, starting in 2019, both AirBNB and VRBO have agreements with the State to collect all taxes directly. We still have to have a TPT license and file a 0 based monthly report. It can all be done online and is fairly simple.
Rental Property Investor · The Villages, FL · Member since 2017 · 341 posts · 397 votes
7y
@Michael Baum yes, VRBO will submit your taxes for you if you are in a state that allows them to. I don't know how it works in your State, but in Florida, you still have to submit(in my case monthly) the total amount of rent received and claim the amount of rent received from VRBO as exempt sales and pay the tax on direct bookings. Even if I owe no tax from bookings outside of VRBO, I still have to claim and submit the amount of rent received that month, even if it is zero.
Rental Property Investor · Rohnert Park, CA · Member since 2014 · 306 posts · 160 votes
7y
Airbnb will not collect tax for my rental because the property is in the city jurisdiction. But if my property was in the county, Airbnb would collect the occupancy tax for me and submit it to the county, and the county would pay the government. But I would also have to get a vacation rental permit from the county for $1000, and every year renew it for $200, and I could only use Airbnb as my rental platform.
For the city, I have to submit occupancy taxes quarterly by telling them my gross rents collected minus any 30-day stays which are not subject to the occupancy tax. Since there’s is not a separate category in Airbnb for them to collect the taxes, I have to do a calculation of the total rents, minus the tax amount, because the two amounts are collected together, and I don’t want to submit the tax amount to the city and be taxed on the amount of tax that I collected for them!
So different locations are different. It would be best to talk to your city and county officials to see what is the process.
Wow, thanks for all the info. We are located in Tucson AZ. We originally listed the property with VRBO, who has told me they collect what I tell them to collect and they send it to me with my rent payment and cleaning fee. I am responsible for paying the cleaning company and the taxes. I had my assistant copy the VRBO listing and place it in AirBnB (yesterday). From what she has been able to find so far would indicate that AirBnB will handle all of the tax payments. I will read the link provided above to confirm.
Let me know if any of you are planning on a trip to sunny Tucson, special discounts for my BP buddies. Take care!!
So that makes me curious. So far HomeAway and AirBNB have been taking out the taxes and paying them direct. I was able to see the information for each booking.
Is no one else seeing that?
It totally depends upon where your listing is. AirBNB has agreements with some localities but not others. USUALLY if AirBNB agrees to collect and remit the taxes for a particular locale, HomeAway (VRBO, Expedia) will follow suit but not always?
Here is Massachusetts, AirBNB is collecting and remitting occupancy taxes but VBRO is not... Maybe that will change in another few weeks...
Two blocks from the UofA. So far all our bookings are UofA related. Although I have a friend who has one in Scottsdale, last year he was booked 30 day in July. Crazy!