Airbnb will bring its tourist tax plan to D.C. starting on Feb. 15. The 14.5 percent tax on the listing price will be collected from people using the popular platform to book rooms for trips and vacations, with the money going to the local government. D.C. is part of the latest group of cities, including Amsterdam, San Jose and Chicago, to get the tax system set up.
Airbnb said it's already raised over $5 million for the Portland, Or. and San Francisco, where the tax is already in place.
"We know that our community has already contributed substantial positive economic benefits in each of these communities, and this is just one more step in helping our hosts make their neighborhoods stronger," Airbnb wrote in a blog post about the new arrangement. "This is a complicated challenge, but we want to continue working with officials around the globe to ensure that tax rules for home sharing are clear, fair, and easy to follow. We look forward to a continued dialogue on this issue with leaders around the world to ensure the sharing economy continues to thrive."
Creating this kind of tax set-up is a clever move for the company, which has faced plenty of litigation and other forms of resistance from cities and companies who don't approve of its business model. If it can convince enough cities to accept its existence in exchange for setting up the tax and other regulation it is comfortable with, it will be able to silence most of its critics and turn city governments suspicious or hostile to it into actual allies.
