14 ms·

So essentially 80% were not properly registered and paying taxes? I’m not that surprised, once a good double-digit number are cheating, cheating becomes the onl

• saddlerustle 5y ago
  It's not about taxes, its about making it easier for the city to enforce the ban on short-term rentals.
  • eecc 5y ago
    It is definitely about both. And about returning the city to citizens who've been priced out by the tourism industry. There's nothing wrong with being a cultural hot-ground, a travel destination, a mindshare icon... but turning a city into an intensive farming Disneyland is another thing.
    • toshk 5y ago
      It was already obligated to register every time you rented.
      • eecc 5y ago
        For what I know, it was rarely done for very short stays as it was meant and organized around the concept of traditional seasonal rents (i.e. students, workers on short assignment dispatches, transitions between longer stable residential arrangements. This is especially designed around the distributed hotel business model, for which the previous tracking and enforcement infrastructure was not qualified for.
• Hendrikto 5y ago
  > The number is linked to an address, which makes it possible to check whether landlords are complying with municipal regulations regarding the maximum number of rental nights allowed. I think the problems wasn‘t that they were not paying taxes, but that they operated private apartments as hotels without permission.
• bennysomething 5y ago
  What evidence do you having for cheating being only way to remain competitive? What exactly do you mean by cheating?
  • factorialboy 5y ago
    If I don't pay taxes, I can pass some of those "savings" to the customer, thus beating the competition on price. If you must compete, you must avoid taxes, thus cheat.
    • bennysomething 5y ago
      So the only way you can compete is by avoiding tax?
      • brezelgoring 5y ago
        All other things being equal, yes. Ceteris Paribus is a thing in economics. Basically what he means is that if you optimize everything in your business, all that remains is what is outside the bounds of the law, if you cheat, you'll win, basically forcing the other to cheat as well. Also, all big businesses cheat tax, either by using creative licensing agreements between subsidiaries or by miscategorizing things. This isn't new.
        • bennysomething 5y ago
          Sorry, I competed absolutely fine when I had an Airbnb rented out for a year. I certainly paid my tax. I didn't cheat anyone. Your proposition that to compete I must cheat doesn't stand up. Individuals chose airbnbs based on quite a few variables. The only time things are going to be equal is if the units for rent are identically positioned, decorated to same standard, have the same furniture and appliances.
          • brezelgoring 5y ago
            >[...] The only time things are going to be equal is if the units for rent are identically positioned, decorated to same standard, have the same furniture and appliances I agree, I mentioned this in my previous comment. >[...] Basically what he means is that if you optimize everything in your business [...] Ceteris Paribus is a theoretical exercise or tool, if you will, but it is useful in trying to understand one of the variables involved in a calculation. We're not disagreeing here, you don't have to cheat, nor should you, but if both of you had clone apartments one in front of the other but your neighbor doesn't pay tax, he's going to get picked first, every time.
• scrose 5y ago
  Years ago when Airbnb was picking up steam and I was in college I got a gig building a tool to automate cross-referencing Airbnb listings with housing records so the city could request the optional tourism tax. What we found surprised all of them. A handful of people were listing sometimes over a dozen properties and avoiding the larger, but not optional, hotel tax. The 80% figure doesn’t surprise me much now just knowing how a few individuals can flood the short-term rental market in an area.
  • dorchadas 5y ago
    > how a few individuals can flood the short-term rental market in an area. And, if it's like some cities (Dublin, Galway), they do this at the expense of the long-term rental market.
    • disgruntledphd2 5y ago
      Yeah, but at least the Irish regulations are now involving Revenue, which means they'll be implemented. A common strategy in Irish government is if there's a problem, and you don't really want to do anything but want to make it look like you're doing something, then you give it to local government to implement, as they won't have the resources to do it. As a bonus, you get to point to the law, secure in the knowledge that it won't be implemented.
    • Freak_NL 5y ago
      That is one of the given reasons the municipality pursues this. There is a housing crisis in the Netherlands, so that gives some context to this.
      • iso1631 5y ago
        > There is a housing crisis in the Netherlands Is there any western city where there isn't a housing crisis?
        • pastacacioepepe 5y ago
• Tabular-Iceberg 5y ago
  >I’m not that surprised, once a good double-digit number are cheating, cheating becomes the only viable way to remain competitive. Is that not always the case with these American marketplace apps? Now that the property owners have to follow the rules, they have the same burden as the real hotels, but none of the economy of scale. Same with all the places where they make Uber drivers be actual taxi drivers in actual taxis. Then all of a sudden they are competing directly against some very large, established players who have the market pretty well figured out already.
  • foobarian 5y ago
    Honestly that is all I wanted from them. Taxi service with a well designed universal phone app with map routing and payment. I guess the established players figured out they didn't need a thing like that but it looks like they were proven wrong.
    • jfrunyon 5y ago
      The only thing that "ride-sharing" companies proved was that they can do it cheaper by (a) bleeding capital and (b) evading regulator enforcement/taxes.
      • mensetmanusman 5y ago
        Note that it wasn’t just cheaper, but also better quality.
        • TeMPOraL 5y ago
          Initially, when they entered new markets and burned VC money to sustain the beachhead. Once their position on a given market was established, the prices went up and quality dropped like a stone.
          • michaelt 5y ago
            The experience here is extremely location-dependent. In some cities, pre-Uber taxi companies have upped their game and got themselves apps that'll give you a price and wait time both of which are actually right, that let you see the taxi on its way to you, tip included in the price, and let you pay by card. In other cities, taxi operators provide shitty service where their card machine "doesn't work" and they "don't have any change" either.
• the-dude 5y ago
  'Social housing' normally forbids subletting. It can get you evicted.
  • dspillett 5y ago
    This varies a lot depending on location. In some places private landlords can not (legally) block sub-letting (except of course where it would cause other breaches, for instance health & safety wrt having too many people living in a property) and this carries over to "social housing" that is provided via public/private cooperation schemes. (NOTE: I'm not intending to imply that it is the case here: I have no idea what the situation is in Amsterdam in this regard)
    • TomSwirly 5y ago
      You cannot sublet social housing in Amsterdam. (I live in Amsterdam.) People do, and people get caught. Both have happened to people I knew.
    • the-dude 5y ago
      Is your comment in the context of the Dutch market?
• toshk 5y ago
  Not completely. Most were dormant advertisements. There is not a big tourist tax here; the biggest tax evasions for private people is probably on their income tax level, but that's not solved by this. The direct issue it addresses is the take over of many tourists of certain neighborhoods meant for living. The favorite hobby of habitants of Amsterdam is complaining about tourists. The fight against Airbnb is a symbolic fight for the left winged parties in the city. Airbnb stands for big bad capitalistic wolf that makes the city unlivable for the normal people. The issue this bigger fight addresses is that Amsterdam is slowly becoming unaffordable for normal people and especially families. Tourist rentals are partly to blame, but there are many more causes (low interest rate, rich parents, students, limited space and more) So there are a bunch of restrictive legislations trying to deal with this, this is just one of them. Another one for instance is that since last year it's required to have a permit if you want to live in a house with more then 2 adults. Already for years it was required to register every night you rented out your appartment. Airbnb however refused to open the books so there was no way to check it for the city. Probably this way Amsterdam can check every registered appartment that's publically listed without the help of Airbnb.
  • mrep 5y ago
    > There is not a big tourist tax here Seriously? Numbers I just googled show like 10-20 million tourists vs a metro population of 2.5 million and you guys have some of the highest taxes in the world? Why are you taxing yourself so much when you can tax the tourists because it is pretty much the opposite in most tourist places in the US?
    • TomSwirly 5y ago
      > you guys have some of the highest taxes in the world? I moved to Amsterdam from NYC, and honestly the taxes are about the same, with NY city and state taxes taken into account.
      • mrep 5y ago
        Heavily depends on where you are on the income curve. Also, I think a more apt comparison would be a more touristy place like florida which has no income tax and relies more on tourism taxes. As an example, a person making $100,000 would pay $22,754 in florida whereas someone in the netherlands making €86,176 would pay €32,989 in income taxes. Then you also need to factor in the 21% vat vs 6% sales tax. Also gas is $3.179 a gallon vs €7.158 a gallon. That's a pretty big tax difference!
• jacquesm 5y ago
  Whole buildings were purposefully converted to illegal hotels. It's been a factor in rising property prices and housing shortages. Less tourism is one of the unexpected bonuses of COVID-19.
  • FredPret 5y ago
    There's a whole class of society that won't think of decreased tourism as a good thing
    • jacquesm 5y ago
      I realize this, even so, for Amsterdam it was a very much needed reprieve.
      • Andrew_nenakhov 5y ago
        So you work hard to make your city to become one of the major tourist destinations in the world, who bring in a lot of money and help the local business flourish, and then need a reprieve from that? Kinda counterproductive, no?
        • WJW 5y ago
          At some point the tourism became somewhat self-reinforcing and needed no more inputs from the city itself. However, when every evening you have an unending stream of tourists puking all over the streets, starting fights and bothering locals there is a point where the downsides for the 90% of people in the non-tourism sector become more important than the upsides for the 10% who make their money off tourists. We'll find something else to do for them.
        • LurkingPenguin 5y ago
          Even as an expat who has been traveling and living abroad for years, I'd have to admit it's true that tourism doesn't necessarily remain a beneficial thing as tourist numbers get larger. I'm generally not a fan of the word "sustainable" so I won't use the phrase "sustainable tourism", but it behooves cities (and countries) to find a balance between making themselves attractive to tourists and making sure that the costs of tourism don't exceed the benefits. Tourism should allow tourists to experience a different place and everything that it's home to (the people, the food, the culture, etc.). When places fundamentally change in an effort to serve tourists, you basically have what I like to call "Disneyland syndrome". They become artificial destinations and the interests of the people who live there are sacrificed to create an optimal experience for the guests. Airbnb is a parasite and one of the first things cities should look at when rethinking their tourism strategies.
• bjarneh 5y ago
  > once a good double-digit number are cheating, cheating becomes the only viable way Good point, but how little oversight does this country have of money being sent to peoples accounts from Airbnb etc? In my country (Norway), all transactions > 500 USD, (or multiple transactions from the same sender of lesser amounts), would register with the tax office. The receiver would have to disclose the source of these transactions to the tax office. If money coming in or out of peoples accounts are governed by self-reporting, people must pay highly inaccurate taxes in the Netherlands.
  • justincormack 5y ago
    That doesn’t happen in most countries.
  • rocqua 5y ago
    Does this registration of transactions only happen only for air-bnb, or does it happen for all transactions? If its the latter, that would be considered a massively over reaching collection drag-net here. Besides that, this is a municipal tax, whereas the income information is only present at the national tax authority. Getting those to inter-operate is quite difficult. Especially since our national tax authority is known to be digitally incapable, and currently has some other much bigger issues to contend with.
• tut-urut-utut 5y ago
  Nice twist. A country that is a tax heaven and enables a lot of business to avoid due taxes in other jurisdictions is now concerned that it can't get its own share of taxes.
  • rocqua 5y ago
    We are a tax haven for foreign companies. Not for our own citizens. The point is to get more rich people inside the country manning the headquarters or at least hiring our financial services. We can then tax those rich people or financial service providers to still increase our income. (Note I think we should not be as much of a tax haven)
• obrienk 5y ago
  There's a limit of 30 nights per year that private individuals can let out their homes. Before the mandatory registration, there was no way for the municipality to enforce or even check that people complied. Now that people can't let out their properties all year round it's not worth it so they're selling up or getting in long term renters.