To: Board of Supervisors
From: Treasurer/Tax Collector
Agenda Section: Consent
SUBJECT:
title
Second Amendment to Airbnb Voluntary Collection Agreement (VCA)
end
RECOMMENDATION(S):
Recommendation
That the Board of Supervisors:
1. Approve, and authorize the Chair of the Board to execute a Second Amendment to the Voluntary Collection Agreement (VCA) with Airbnb, Inc. to stop the collection of the Humboldt County Tourism Business Improvement District (HCTBID) Assessments (Attachment 1).
Body
SOURCE OF FUNDING:
None. The VCA is revenue positive.
DISCUSSION:
The VCA executed by your Board on May 31, 2016, and dated June 8, 2016 (Attachment 2), established the collection and remittance of Transient Occupancy Taxes (TOT) for the county on behalf of third-party individuals or entities that utilize Airbnb's online booking platform for short-term lodging. The execution of the first amendment (Attachment 1) required Airbnb to begin collecting and remitting the HCTBID, along with TOT, for the county as of April 1, 2018 for those same third-party individuals or entities that utilize the Airbnb platform.
On October 15, 2019 your Board approved a modification to the Management District Plan (MDP), (Attachment 3), as requested by the Humboldt Lodging Alliance (HLA), which eliminated lodging businesses with less than 5 rentable units at a single location from HCTBID assessment requirements; effective January 1, 2020.
The Treasurer-Tax Collector (T-TC) asked Airbnb if their company had the ability to continue to collect from lodging operators with 5 or more rentable units at a single location if a list of those properties were provided to Airbnb and the answer was no. Airbnb stated they cannot apply a tax to only some listings and exempt others, unless the application is based on a data point which Airbnb regularly collects (e.g., location, number of nights booked, type of listing, etc.). Airbnb stated they could potentially manually configure each lis...
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