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The 6000 unregistered vacation rentals are hiding in plain sight! Whoever (county, state) benefits the most from getting them registered and paying full tax should hire a couple of people to just start knocking on doors or writing letters. It would be easy, they advertise!
Not sure I completely believe these numbers, but any one vacation rental not paying its tax is too many.
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Currently, the distribution is capped but I don't believe that will always be the case.
Correct: eventually State will reduce the County share to zero -- never forget that Oahu is "the economic engine of the state", and the neighbor islands are just there as a resource for State to exploit as necessary.
Whoever (county, state) benefits the most from getting them registered and paying full tax should hire a couple of people to just start knocking on doors or writing letters.
Kinda my point -- if State wants more TAT, then State should come over here and enforce that rule, because State is the one who gets that money.
I maintain that County should tax TVRs indirectly as a "use class", because then County gets to keep that money.
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So in addition to the highest property tax rates, they also pay TAT plus GET on every rental.....
Sounds like tourists pay more than their fair share.
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According to the article, 6000 out of 8647 (70%) listed Big Island vacation rentals are NOT registered with the state.
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I believe that many of these are duplicates in the VRBO/Homeaway/AirBNB systems. Many owners advertise on more than one of the sites.
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So in addition to the highest property tax rates, they also pay TAT plus GET on every rental....
See start of thread. I propose a slightly higher property tax rate for "registered" vacation rentals, and a much higher rate for "unregistered" vacation rentals; all that money stays here on the Big Island.
When a tourist pays their "fair share", the Big Island only receives about 4% of that revenue; most of that "fair share" disappears into the money pit that is Oahu Rail.
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When a tourist pays their "fair share", the Big Island only receives about 4% of that revenue; most of that "fair share" disappears into the money pit that is Oahu Rail.
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Not the tourists fault who pay more than their fare share already. Keep fleecing the tourist and they will stop coming. Chicago learned that a number of years back and the conventions almost stopped coming.
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Keep fleecing the tourist and they will stop coming.
"Fleecing them" by charging the legally required TAT, or "they stop coming" because there's nowhere to stay?
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"..The latest bill contains enforcement measures that require the internet booking platforms to verify the legality of a vacation rental before doing business with it...
..It’s opposed by real estate agents, Airbnb and HomeAway/VRBO, which said in testimony that requiring it to disclose the names and license numbers of rental units without a subpoena is contrary to federal law."
I don't see a problem with this bill. The onus of enforcement is essentially placed upon the booking agencies. They don't have to disclose anything, they just need to verify that the properties seeking to post on their site are represented on the state's list of registered vacation rental properties.
