8 ms·

Quebec reaches lodging tax deal with Airbnb

80 points by qazwse_ 9y ago

j15e 9y ago
The most interesting thing for me will be that we be that the governement (and maybe us too) will be able to know much more precisely how much Airbnb renting is going on in the province and possibly where & when too.
- frandroid 9y ago
  It's mostly a double-tax grab: 1st, the hospitality tax, and 2nd, when Revenue Québec goes after hosts' undeclared income. This will have the effect to dissuade the small hosts due to government harassment, while the larger hosts will pay the income tax and still make bank. Exactly the outcome that is undesirable.
  - camus2 9y ago
    > This will have the effect to dissuade the small hosts due to government harassment If you consider following the law "government harassment", then your comment makes sense. But I'm pretty sure not declaring a commercial activity is illegal and not declaring revenue from that activity is called tax evasion, Airbnb or not.
    - Spivak 9y ago
      I can barely see you up on that high horse. There are so many ways of making money that people don't report. Do you report the interest on your savings account? The idea that a person should feel a some sort of duty to report the money they made renting out their house for a few weekends a year is absurd -- and a government that goes after their citizens for such a pittance has missed the forest for the trees.
      - awa 9y ago
        afaik, most people do report interest from savings account. In US, The bank sends a 1099-int to you and the IRS if interest earned>$10
        slavik81 9y ago
        In Canada the threshold is $50 for receiving a T5. You are, of course, still obligated to report it even if you don't get a form. I actually do bother to look that stuff up each year, but I suspect that many Canadians do not if they don't receive a form.
  - Elv13 9y ago
    > This will have the effect to dissuade the small hosts due to government harassment, while the larger hosts will pay the income tax and still make bank. There is a provision where everything under 30kCAD/y isn't fully taxable. After 30k, you have to pay the taxes fully (including on the first 30k). So while there is some income taxes, the full VAT taxation isn't enforced (you can pay if you want, "of course"). So smaller hosts still have better margins than the bigger ones.
abuteau 9y ago
They did the same with Uber https://www.uber.com/en-CA/drive/montreal/get-started/tax-registration/ https://www.uber.com/en-CA/drive/montreal/get-started/tax-re...
sien 9y ago
It's great to see local and state government coming to a sensible deal with AirBnB and also with Uber. It should be a model for how to handle these things. Some light oversight and some tax, but not caving in to extant rent seekers like taxi plate owners and hotel chain owners.
- Spivak 9y ago
  I'm sorry, what? I get that Airbnb allows individuals to list their own properties but if we're being honest in a couple years the majority of Airbnb property owners are going to be precisely those existing rent seekers who have found a way to operate basically small expensive hotels in areas where commercial zoning is expensive. It's really isn't going to change much in the long run. It's just a de-facto commercial zoning grant to all residential areas. It's going to decrease the pool of available properties for long-term residents and raise the rents for those residents because every property manager is going to have to decide whether they think they could make more money by renting to an individual long-term or by just perpetually listing on Airbnb. This really isn't a victory for anybody but Airbnb and existing property managers.
  - quuquuquu 9y ago
    wouldn't a halfway decent solution to this be to lower property tax, lessen zoning laws and fines, and otherwise do things that will bring down property/building prices? This would allow those who currently rent to be able to buy land, put a manufactured or temporary lodging on that land, and live there legally and cheaply, compared to a traditional home in a densely populated area. It seems in my opinion that supply is artificially constrained, and that is why Airbnb is so popular.
    - majjam 9y ago
      I disagree. People want to live in cities for the jobs and opportunities they offer. It is very difficult to increase the housing stock within cities even with the measures you list, this scarcity of housing is made worse because landlords buy up flats turning them into AirBnb properties, preventing people from living in them. This results in the hollowing out of cities so they become tourist resorts. Barcelona has had a particularly hard time with this.
frandroid 9y ago
The "one host, one home" deal is a much better way to deal with the downsides of Airbnb: https://www.thestar.com/news/city_hall/2017/06/19/toronto-to-move-forward-with-proposed-rules-on-airbnb-style-rentals.html https://www.thestar.com/news/city_hall/2017/06/19/toronto-to...
- SOLAR_FIELDS 9y ago
  This seems like an actual reasonable solution to the problem that makes most people happy. Where is this sanity coming from?
  - gf263 9y ago
    Canada.
fiatjaf 9y ago
Now it is the opportunity for an Airbnb competitor to appear. I can only hope that.
- isostatic 9y ago
  Holiday cottages have been rentable for decades - my family used to get brochures for them in the 80s, we stayed in Cornish villages for 2 weeks a year when we had the dogs. These still continue - I used cottages.com to rent a cottage in Wales last week. That tourism is what drives the local economy. Sites like that (others are available) have city locations too, I've used similar sites to book in Rome and Berlin Air bnb's key feature, like uber, is its global reach. I've used uber on 6 continents because it's always the same. I don't use it in some locations due to safety considerations, but in most cities it's far easier and nicer (compare an uber with a manhattan cab where you are force fed adverts and have to "tip" a driver who probably won't even take a credit card. I've never risked airbnb stay though - came close when I spent a month in singapore, but too many horror stories, and I had my family with me. Didn't want to have the police evicting us in the middle of the night 2 weeks in, found a proper managed appartment. Singapore really doesn't like airbnb as most housing is government owned (to keep prices affordable), and you have to be a citizen to live there. Prevents the country turning into something horrible like Dubai.
majjam 9y ago
A concern I haven't seen raised as much with AirBnb is the erosion of communities. It is ironic that tourists wish to visit cities for their culture (Berlin, Amsterdam etc.) but that by removing housing stock, there will be fewer and fewer locals left, for example in Edinburgh's grassmarket, entire tenements are now short term lets. Cities then just become pretty museums.
- fish_fan 9y ago
  I mean, is this so bad? It also implies novel communities are forming elsewhere; perhaps you're viewing this from a perspective on the past when the one on the future may be more relevant. I say this as someone who hates AirBnB and high rent prices in cities.
  - majjam 9y ago
    I would like this to be true, but I cant think of anything that could replace the city for jobs and opportunities. Do you have any examples of this? And of course as soon as an alternative cultural center pops up, rent seeking will follow...
  - frandroid 9y ago
    The community that get uprooted from one neighbourhood doesn't reform in a new sui generis neighbourhood in the city to reconstitute itself whole; its members get scattered across the city. In Toronto's Kensington Market neighbourhood, in a 5 by 5 street area, there are somewhere around 250 airbnb units available, and the area is turning from a traditional market into a bar and restaurant area. The residents are pushed away and the local merchants are pushed away.
    - 52-6F-62 9y ago
      Is Kensington really getting that bad? I haven't been down there in a little while, but my girlfriend still seemed to think it was going well there. She rarely goes herself, though. That said I rent long-term (nearing a 1/2 years) in Liberty Village (Ha! I cannot afford to buy in this city) and my building seems to be half Airbnb units. I run into more people with luggage coming and going than I see actual residents. The faces are always changing except for the smallest set...
j15e 9y ago
They just sent an email to their customers in Québec and they specify they will not share reservation and owner details to the government, only a summary per region per month. So the is no extra power to Revenu Québec to find out you don't report all your earnings. The fact they sent (french) : Partagerez-vous mes informations personnelles lors du versement de la taxe ? Non. Nous remplirons une déclaration fiscale par région, qui indiquera le montant total des revenus issus de l'ensemble des réservations Airbnb effectuées dans la zone en question. Autrement dit, tous les hôtes seront représentés par un même montant, et nous ne fournirons pas vos informations personnelles sur la déclaration.
- frandroid 9y ago
  Merci.
tzury 9y ago
This is simply great! It means Air BnB can scale even more, take savvy incorporated entrepreneurs in the field for example. They can even pretend to be a private home holders.. Now it is all in the books, reported and regulated.
miguelrochefort 9y ago
Why is Quebec always doing things differently? - Airbnb and Uber hostility - Dairy cartel - Language police - World Nomads (travel insurance) exclusion - Contests exclusion - Worst ER wait times - ...
- onorton 9y ago
  I would assume the French influence. Difference between common law and a civil code.
naskwo 9y ago
Background: I am the founder of the rental largest housing site in NL (Kamernet.nl) I believe that Spain (Barcelona, Ibiza) already have rules in place that limit the possibility of renting out accommodations and require a local license. The first step for any locale is to establish policy and rules in this "new normal" situation where renting out property (and leveraging tourism) has become very easy and painless. Rules that are enforceable, with sanctions strong enough to limit abuse. Next, the local governments should be in their right to ask for verifiable users of the platform, but equally of people who advertise in paper media. At the end of the day, a public db with some form of API should be set up by the local government. This db is freely (as in beer) accessible to all housing platforms to check that OAuth(SSN+property id+number of beds) indeed has a permit. Even a calendar could be added (in Amsterdam, the limit is 60 nights per year per house or host / not sure). ?

80 points by qazwse_ 9y ago

j15e 9y ago

The most interesting thing for me will be that we be that the governement (and maybe us too) will be able to know much more precisely how much Airbnb renting is going on in the province and possibly where & when too.

frandroid 9y ago
It's mostly a double-tax grab: 1st, the hospitality tax, and 2nd, when Revenue Québec goes after hosts' undeclared income. This will have the effect to dissuade the small hosts due to government harassment, while the larger hosts will pay the income tax and still make bank. Exactly the outcome that is undesirable.
- camus2 9y ago
  > This will have the effect to dissuade the small hosts due to government harassment If you consider following the law "government harassment", then your comment makes sense. But I'm pretty sure not declaring a commercial activity is illegal and not declaring revenue from that activity is called tax evasion, Airbnb or not.
  - Spivak 9y ago
    I can barely see you up on that high horse. There are so many ways of making money that people don't report. Do you report the interest on your savings account? The idea that a person should feel a some sort of duty to report the money they made renting out their house for a few weekends a year is absurd -- and a government that goes after their citizens for such a pittance has missed the forest for the trees.
    - awa 9y ago
      afaik, most people do report interest from savings account. In US, The bank sends a 1099-int to you and the IRS if interest earned>$10
      - slavik81 9y ago
        In Canada the threshold is $50 for receiving a T5. You are, of course, still obligated to report it even if you don't get a form. I actually do bother to look that stuff up each year, but I suspect that many Canadians do not if they don't receive a form.
- Elv13 9y ago
  > This will have the effect to dissuade the small hosts due to government harassment, while the larger hosts will pay the income tax and still make bank. There is a provision where everything under 30kCAD/y isn't fully taxable. After 30k, you have to pay the taxes fully (including on the first 30k). So while there is some income taxes, the full VAT taxation isn't enforced (you can pay if you want, "of course"). So smaller hosts still have better margins than the bigger ones.

abuteau 9y ago

They did the same with Uber https://www.uber.com/en-CA/drive/montreal/get-started/tax-registration/ https://www.uber.com/en-CA/drive/montreal/get-started/tax-re...

sien 9y ago

It's great to see local and state government coming to a sensible deal with AirBnB and also with Uber. It should be a model for how to handle these things. Some light oversight and some tax, but not caving in to extant rent seekers like taxi plate owners and hotel chain owners.

Spivak 9y ago
I'm sorry, what? I get that Airbnb allows individuals to list their own properties but if we're being honest in a couple years the majority of Airbnb property owners are going to be precisely those existing rent seekers who have found a way to operate basically small expensive hotels in areas where commercial zoning is expensive. It's really isn't going to change much in the long run. It's just a de-facto commercial zoning grant to all residential areas. It's going to decrease the pool of available properties for long-term residents and raise the rents for those residents because every property manager is going to have to decide whether they think they could make more money by renting to an individual long-term or by just perpetually listing on Airbnb. This really isn't a victory for anybody but Airbnb and existing property managers.
- quuquuquu 9y ago
  wouldn't a halfway decent solution to this be to lower property tax, lessen zoning laws and fines, and otherwise do things that will bring down property/building prices? This would allow those who currently rent to be able to buy land, put a manufactured or temporary lodging on that land, and live there legally and cheaply, compared to a traditional home in a densely populated area. It seems in my opinion that supply is artificially constrained, and that is why Airbnb is so popular.
  - majjam 9y ago
    I disagree. People want to live in cities for the jobs and opportunities they offer. It is very difficult to increase the housing stock within cities even with the measures you list, this scarcity of housing is made worse because landlords buy up flats turning them into AirBnb properties, preventing people from living in them. This results in the hollowing out of cities so they become tourist resorts. Barcelona has had a particularly hard time with this.

frandroid 9y ago

The "one host, one home" deal is a much better way to deal with the downsides of Airbnb: https://www.thestar.com/news/city_hall/2017/06/19/toronto-to-move-forward-with-proposed-rules-on-airbnb-style-rentals.html https://www.thestar.com/news/city_hall/2017/06/19/toronto-to...

SOLAR_FIELDS 9y ago
This seems like an actual reasonable solution to the problem that makes most people happy. Where is this sanity coming from?
- gf263 9y ago
  Canada.

fiatjaf 9y ago

Now it is the opportunity for an Airbnb competitor to appear. I can only hope that.

isostatic 9y ago
Holiday cottages have been rentable for decades - my family used to get brochures for them in the 80s, we stayed in Cornish villages for 2 weeks a year when we had the dogs. These still continue - I used cottages.com to rent a cottage in Wales last week. That tourism is what drives the local economy. Sites like that (others are available) have city locations too, I've used similar sites to book in Rome and Berlin Air bnb's key feature, like uber, is its global reach. I've used uber on 6 continents because it's always the same. I don't use it in some locations due to safety considerations, but in most cities it's far easier and nicer (compare an uber with a manhattan cab where you are force fed adverts and have to "tip" a driver who probably won't even take a credit card. I've never risked airbnb stay though - came close when I spent a month in singapore, but too many horror stories, and I had my family with me. Didn't want to have the police evicting us in the middle of the night 2 weeks in, found a proper managed appartment. Singapore really doesn't like airbnb as most housing is government owned (to keep prices affordable), and you have to be a citizen to live there. Prevents the country turning into something horrible like Dubai.

majjam 9y ago

A concern I haven't seen raised as much with AirBnb is the erosion of communities. It is ironic that tourists wish to visit cities for their culture (Berlin, Amsterdam etc.) but that by removing housing stock, there will be fewer and fewer locals left, for example in Edinburgh's grassmarket, entire tenements are now short term lets. Cities then just become pretty museums.

fish_fan 9y ago
I mean, is this so bad? It also implies novel communities are forming elsewhere; perhaps you're viewing this from a perspective on the past when the one on the future may be more relevant. I say this as someone who hates AirBnB and high rent prices in cities.
- majjam 9y ago
  I would like this to be true, but I cant think of anything that could replace the city for jobs and opportunities. Do you have any examples of this? And of course as soon as an alternative cultural center pops up, rent seeking will follow...
- frandroid 9y ago
  The community that get uprooted from one neighbourhood doesn't reform in a new sui generis neighbourhood in the city to reconstitute itself whole; its members get scattered across the city. In Toronto's Kensington Market neighbourhood, in a 5 by 5 street area, there are somewhere around 250 airbnb units available, and the area is turning from a traditional market into a bar and restaurant area. The residents are pushed away and the local merchants are pushed away.
  - 52-6F-62 9y ago
    Is Kensington really getting that bad? I haven't been down there in a little while, but my girlfriend still seemed to think it was going well there. She rarely goes herself, though. That said I rent long-term (nearing a 1/2 years) in Liberty Village (Ha! I cannot afford to buy in this city) and my building seems to be half Airbnb units. I run into more people with luggage coming and going than I see actual residents. The faces are always changing except for the smallest set...

j15e 9y ago

They just sent an email to their customers in Québec and they specify they will not share reservation and owner details to the government, only a summary per region per month. So the is no extra power to Revenu Québec to find out you don't report all your earnings. The fact they sent (french) : Partagerez-vous mes informations personnelles lors du versement de la taxe ? Non. Nous remplirons une déclaration fiscale par région, qui indiquera le montant total des revenus issus de l'ensemble des réservations Airbnb effectuées dans la zone en question. Autrement dit, tous les hôtes seront représentés par un même montant, et nous ne fournirons pas vos informations personnelles sur la déclaration.

frandroid 9y ago
Merci.

tzury 9y ago

This is simply great! It means Air BnB can scale even more, take savvy incorporated entrepreneurs in the field for example. They can even pretend to be a private home holders.. Now it is all in the books, reported and regulated.

miguelrochefort 9y ago

Why is Quebec always doing things differently? - Airbnb and Uber hostility - Dairy cartel - Language police - World Nomads (travel insurance) exclusion - Contests exclusion - Worst ER wait times - ...

onorton 9y ago
I would assume the French influence. Difference between common law and a civil code.

naskwo 9y ago

Background: I am the founder of the rental largest housing site in NL (Kamernet.nl) I believe that Spain (Barcelona, Ibiza) already have rules in place that limit the possibility of renting out accommodations and require a local license. The first step for any locale is to establish policy and rules in this "new normal" situation where renting out property (and leveraging tourism) has become very easy and painless. Rules that are enforceable, with sanctions strong enough to limit abuse. Next, the local governments should be in their right to ask for verifiable users of the platform, but equally of people who advertise in paper media. At the end of the day, a public db with some form of API should be set up by the local government. This db is freely (as in beer) accessible to all housing platforms to check that OAuth(SSN+property id+number of beds) indeed has a permit. Even a calendar could be added (in Amsterdam, the limit is 60 nights per year per house or host / not sure). ?