> The VAT on most Airbnb stays can be as little as 0.6 per cent because the UK only levies the tax when businesses sell more than £83,000 per year — a threshold reached by very few Airbnb hosts. It is otherwise only payable on Airbnb’s booking and service fees.
So the problem is that many "small business" pay less taxes than big companies, which seems fair. The main difference is that thanks to Internet, those small business now can be aggregated into a platform while still operating independently, which is basically awesome.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/destinations/europe/united...
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2015/jan/07/london-touri...
This is, as the local authority says, partly to clean and police and etc areas that are very popular with tourists.
(Though maybe you were adding information about hotel taxation without any thoughts about airbnb or how it relates.)
It is designed to screw over foreigners.
(Side note: Usual "Google the headline" trick works on FT.com's paywall)
Up to 30USD of the 100USD I save compared to a regular hotel? PER NIGHT? In that price range, $30 are a mere tip.
> On average, guests paid $220 a night for a hotel room in 2015 before VAT, while Airbnb hosts received $142, according to the Hotelschool report, which was calculated in dollars. After taking account of hotel room VAT and Airbnb fees (assuming a 10 per cent guest fee and a 3 per cent host fee, plus VAT) the prices were $264 for the hotel room and $164 for Airbnb.
Rather than finding a common working ground that keeps customers happy that outnumber those unhappy with it by 100:1 and instead updates laws like improving landlords protection from Airbnb renters, improving access to employment insurance and health care to self employed contractors, etc it's easier to blame tech billionaires for being greedy.
It's true, though; the reason companies like AirBnB and Uber are so vastly superior to the entrenched competition is that they don't have to deal with all the ridiculous and pointless red tape that makes taxis so horrendous and American hotels so insanely expensive.
I'm not sure how anyone can recognize that overregulation makes taxis, hotels, etc. so truly awful and then turn around and suggest that the solution is to also overregulate everyone else who managed to escape from that utility-sucking tarpit of bureaucracy and waste.
Even after fire escapes were mandated hundreds of people died in a factory fire ( see https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triangle_Shirtwaist_Factory_... ). I hope you are wiling to concede that these regulations, while imposing a real burden on businesses and landlords, were designed to correct a real and very persistent problem. Is your position that we would be better to just ignore fire and other safety rules for all hotels?
In light of a clear rationale for such regulations, we must ask why one business should get to play by a different set of rules than another? Free market competition does not work if the only advantage is regulatory arbitrage. That would be like a race between two cars, one that has a 40 mile/hour speed limit, the other no speed limit. Which car would you pick?
The only argument that I would concede is that perhaps AirBnB is closer to an actual bed and breakfast, so those regulations should apply, but I would guess that class of regulation is generally more strict than what they are subject to now.
And yes, Airbnb is skirting the law in the loaded sense of the term. They basically encourage illegal rentals and then refuse to police them until cities like NYC force them to. They might not be directly in violation of laws themselves, but they're definitely knowingly enabling their customers to do illegal things.
Why do you believe the regulation of these markets is particularly onerous? Can you provide some specific examples?
As usual, the truth is somewhere in the middle.
Of course they are. And Uber has been fined/sued/charged hundreds if not thousands of times for doing just that. The penalties have proved insufficient to deter them from their illegal racketeering operation, however.
You may also be forgetting the other amenities that hotels may provide: the additional cost of common area facilities (exercise rooms, breakfast areas, pool, etc) the hotel provides for the guest. Room service, turndown service, and daily cleaning also play a huge role.
There's also a huge amount of space that's used for things like lobbies, front desks, back of the house offices for the accounting/managerial/etc staff that keep not only your one room operating, but provides the flexibility to rent 100, 200, 300, 400 rooms.
Then of course, you have the construction + regulation that goes into a hotel. Guestroom entry doors must meet a specific fire-rated standard (greater than those normally found in residential homes). In the United States and in Europe, each guestroom is designed to maximize the protection of the occupant from environmental threats. Fire alarms and sprinklers are regularly tested, every entry door has a lock whose key is tightly controlled. HVAC systems are constantly maintained so that dust and mold don't build up inside.
And so on, and so forth.
Hotels also have a lot of empty rooms that cost money to maintain whether they are occupied or not.
Hotels employ staff, not all of whom are fully productive 100% of the time.
Before a hotel takes my money I actually know where it is. The hotel is governed by local legislation so I have redress if something goes wrong.
I may have some redress with Airbnb but I wouldn't like to bet on it.
Is AirBnB still pushing the "spare room" thing?
