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There seems to be some confusion about the tax issue here .. many commenters seem to think that AirBnB hosts are avoiding tax on their income via AirBnB. That's

There seems to be some confusion about the tax issue here .. many commenters seem to think that AirBnB hosts are avoiding tax on their income via AirBnB. That's simply not true, in fact AirBnB reports this income to the IRS and you are required to fill out a tax form to continue hosting. The issue at question is a tiny (% wise) hotel tax. In my view AirBnB is not resisting this tax for its own sake, but rather because it risks classifying hosts as hotel operators. AirBnB is a wonderful service, and yes it has flaws, but NYC is caving to the demands of political interests who know how to play the lobbying game.

untog 13y ago
it risks classifying hosts as hotel operators But why is that a risk, or a negative? I'd be interested to know what obligations hotel operators have. If it's putting in fire extinguishers and ensuring emergency fire exit access, then, well, sign them up.
- marknutter 13y ago
  Because an apartment is not a hotel. What on earth would an emergency exit for an apartment be? The front door? I'm betting there are all sorts of requirements that simply wouldn't make sense when applied to a single apartment.
  - untog 13y ago
    What on earth would an emergency exit for an apartment be? The front door? Do you think all hotels rooms have two exits? Of course not. The issue is whether the floor and the building have sufficient emergency exits. And that's where it will get complicated. A hotel owns the entire building and can ensure that stuff - someone owning one apartment in the building can't really make any modifications if they are needed.
    - marknutter 13y ago
      Right, so you're making my point for me. The apartment owner literally has no power over whether or not the larger building complies with these regulations. So maybe that's the point; to prevent them from ever subletting their apartments. If so then just make subletting illegal and be done with it. A question to ask yourself: does it make sense to require hotels to adhere to these safety regulations but not apartment buildings?
      - untog 13y ago
        If so then just make subletting illegal and be done with it. Which it is, without landlord permission. Which, pretty clearly, most people are not obtaining.
      - rayiner 13y ago
        > A question to ask yourself: does it make sense to require hotels to adhere to these safety regulations but not apartment buildings? It might. It might be reasonable to assume more familiarity with fire exit locations in an apartment building than in a hotel.
- argumentum 13y ago
  It obviously more than just fire regulations. Hotels are probably required to be inspected on a regular basis, probably required to maintain a presence at the building, required to have a process to clean every room after each stay. They probably require a "manager" with "5 years industry experience" (by the way, from researching the parking industry , even a valet parking outfit needs to have such a person). The fact is this would kill AirBnB. It would make it too expensive to operate as a small host. Someone renting out their apartment to make ends meet, and very often in the process making lifelong friends with those who stay, should not in any sense be considered a hotel. It's a totally different experience for both the host and the guest. I stayed at one of the earliest AirBnB spots, literally a "tree house" high in the santa cruz mountains in the host's backyard. It was advertised as such on the site, and was an amazing experience. We chatted for hours with the host, who told us all sorts of stories, including that a replica of her treehouse now sits at the offices of AirBnB. How is that in any way a hotel?
  - bri3d 13y ago
    In my experience everything in the "Whole Apartment/House" category on AirBnB is a faux-hotel, and pretty much everything outside of it is demonstrably different (since if the owner/lessee stays at that point it's for-pay couchsurfing). I have no idea about AirBnB's numbers but it would be interesting to see which is more popular and if they could sustainably eliminate the "whole apartment/house" faux-hotel segment they've created without going under.
    - argumentum 13y ago
      I disagree, in some ways it's even less like a hotel than renting a room. In a hotel you expect some level of service (a bellman, a receptionist etc). Should I rent an apartment or home on airbnb I expect the keys and nothing more. Should it be substandard, or not what I anticipated from the listing, I expect to be able to report the condition via a review on AirBnB. I don't expect a refund should I decide to stay there, unless it's specified in the host's policy on the website. I don't expect it to always be spic and span, but if a particular place is, I'd be happy to leave a positive review. I don't expect there to be a new bar of (crappy) soap in the shower. But that's only the negative. I don't expect the host to spend hours talking about the local area, or even giving me a tour. Sometimes that happens on AirBnB, quite often in fact, even when I rent the whole place. It's never happened at a hotel, though I expect there's a concierge service which can arrange such an experience, except a professional one at a price. It's just a different experience, and frankly, I will never stay at a hotel again (unless AirBnB is banned or has no availability from a particular area). Yes, I'm taking a risk of a messy place, or bad host, but a risk that's mitigated not by some governmental regulation (which rarely ensures quality), but rather by the AirBnB community which I've come to trust a lot more anyway.
debacle 13y ago
The real issue is insurance. AirBnB is living in a vacuum in that space. I would bet less than 1% of hosts have proper coverage for subletting out their living space, and 99.99% of landlords have specific exclusions on their policies against subletting. So you have an instance where a potential loss to the insured (the landlord), the host, and the consumer is completely uninsured. Now multiply that reality across the entirety of the AirBnB hosts in NYC, and you have a recipe for a financial nightmare.
- argumentum 13y ago
  AirBnB does offer a $1m host guarantee.
jtbigwoo 13y ago
>> The issue at question is a tiny (% wise) hotel tax. In my view AirBnB is not resisting this tax for its own sake, but rather because it risks classifying hosts as hotel operators. A small quibble: The various taxes on hotel charges in New York add up to almost 15%. If AirBnB has 15,000 people renting rooms, we could easily be talking about millions of dollars here.
- argumentum 13y ago
  New York has never even attempted to claim that AirBnB is itself a hotel (new laws would be needed for that). They instead claim that individual hosts are violating unlicensed hotels.

untog 13y ago

it risks classifying hosts as hotel operators But why is that a risk, or a negative? I'd be interested to know what obligations hotel operators have. If it's putting in fire extinguishers and ensuring emergency fire exit access, then, well, sign them up.

marknutter 13y ago
Because an apartment is not a hotel. What on earth would an emergency exit for an apartment be? The front door? I'm betting there are all sorts of requirements that simply wouldn't make sense when applied to a single apartment.
- untog 13y ago
  What on earth would an emergency exit for an apartment be? The front door? Do you think all hotels rooms have two exits? Of course not. The issue is whether the floor and the building have sufficient emergency exits. And that's where it will get complicated. A hotel owns the entire building and can ensure that stuff - someone owning one apartment in the building can't really make any modifications if they are needed.
  - marknutter 13y ago
    Right, so you're making my point for me. The apartment owner literally has no power over whether or not the larger building complies with these regulations. So maybe that's the point; to prevent them from ever subletting their apartments. If so then just make subletting illegal and be done with it. A question to ask yourself: does it make sense to require hotels to adhere to these safety regulations but not apartment buildings?
    - untog 13y ago
      If so then just make subletting illegal and be done with it. Which it is, without landlord permission. Which, pretty clearly, most people are not obtaining.
    - rayiner 13y ago
      > A question to ask yourself: does it make sense to require hotels to adhere to these safety regulations but not apartment buildings? It might. It might be reasonable to assume more familiarity with fire exit locations in an apartment building than in a hotel.
argumentum 13y ago
It obviously more than just fire regulations. Hotels are probably required to be inspected on a regular basis, probably required to maintain a presence at the building, required to have a process to clean every room after each stay. They probably require a "manager" with "5 years industry experience" (by the way, from researching the parking industry , even a valet parking outfit needs to have such a person). The fact is this would kill AirBnB. It would make it too expensive to operate as a small host. Someone renting out their apartment to make ends meet, and very often in the process making lifelong friends with those who stay, should not in any sense be considered a hotel. It's a totally different experience for both the host and the guest. I stayed at one of the earliest AirBnB spots, literally a "tree house" high in the santa cruz mountains in the host's backyard. It was advertised as such on the site, and was an amazing experience. We chatted for hours with the host, who told us all sorts of stories, including that a replica of her treehouse now sits at the offices of AirBnB. How is that in any way a hotel?
- bri3d 13y ago
  In my experience everything in the "Whole Apartment/House" category on AirBnB is a faux-hotel, and pretty much everything outside of it is demonstrably different (since if the owner/lessee stays at that point it's for-pay couchsurfing). I have no idea about AirBnB's numbers but it would be interesting to see which is more popular and if they could sustainably eliminate the "whole apartment/house" faux-hotel segment they've created without going under.
  - argumentum 13y ago
    I disagree, in some ways it's even less like a hotel than renting a room. In a hotel you expect some level of service (a bellman, a receptionist etc). Should I rent an apartment or home on airbnb I expect the keys and nothing more. Should it be substandard, or not what I anticipated from the listing, I expect to be able to report the condition via a review on AirBnB. I don't expect a refund should I decide to stay there, unless it's specified in the host's policy on the website. I don't expect it to always be spic and span, but if a particular place is, I'd be happy to leave a positive review. I don't expect there to be a new bar of (crappy) soap in the shower. But that's only the negative. I don't expect the host to spend hours talking about the local area, or even giving me a tour. Sometimes that happens on AirBnB, quite often in fact, even when I rent the whole place. It's never happened at a hotel, though I expect there's a concierge service which can arrange such an experience, except a professional one at a price. It's just a different experience, and frankly, I will never stay at a hotel again (unless AirBnB is banned or has no availability from a particular area). Yes, I'm taking a risk of a messy place, or bad host, but a risk that's mitigated not by some governmental regulation (which rarely ensures quality), but rather by the AirBnB community which I've come to trust a lot more anyway.

debacle 13y ago

The real issue is insurance. AirBnB is living in a vacuum in that space. I would bet less than 1% of hosts have proper coverage for subletting out their living space, and 99.99% of landlords have specific exclusions on their policies against subletting. So you have an instance where a potential loss to the insured (the landlord), the host, and the consumer is completely uninsured. Now multiply that reality across the entirety of the AirBnB hosts in NYC, and you have a recipe for a financial nightmare.

argumentum 13y ago
AirBnB does offer a $1m host guarantee.

jtbigwoo 13y ago

>> The issue at question is a tiny (% wise) hotel tax. In my view AirBnB is not resisting this tax for its own sake, but rather because it risks classifying hosts as hotel operators. A small quibble: The various taxes on hotel charges in New York add up to almost 15%. If AirBnB has 15,000 people renting rooms, we could easily be talking about millions of dollars here.

argumentum 13y ago
New York has never even attempted to claim that AirBnB is itself a hotel (new laws would be needed for that). They instead claim that individual hosts are violating unlicensed hotels.