Airbnb To Start Collecting Hotel Tax On Rentals In San Francisco 71
An anonymous reader writes Airbnb announced that it will begin collecting a 14% occupancy tax on behalf of its San Francisco hosts October 1. "This is the culmination of a long process that began earlier this year when we announced our intent to help collect and remit occupancy taxes in San Francisco," wrote Airbnb public policy leader David Owen. The company already collects taxes in Portland, and has discussed the possibility of collecting taxes in New York.
Uber announces UberRV (Score:5, Funny)
Why stay in a hotel when you can stay on the road? Now, with UberRV, you can move around and avoid any pesky taxes. The law says if you're not parked, you're not living there, or at least that's what we're claiming this week. AirBNB is old news thanks to UberRV.
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and under our new fine print if the driver get's in accident you can get sued as well.
Re:Uber announces UberRV (Score:4, Informative)
and under our new fine print if the driver get's in accident you can get sued as well.
Putting the initial joke aside, here is the actual [scribd.com] insurance policy from Uber.
There is actually nothing wrong with it, as far as I can tell.
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Why stay in an RV when you could stay on a couch [couchsurfing.org]?
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But you have an income tax right? Tennessee had no income tax but like an 8% ~ 9% sales tax
Re:14%? What a f***ing ripoff (Score:4, Interesting)
4 cities... (Score:4, Informative)
Dallas = Room + 2% DTPID Fee + 7.1% City Tax + 6.1% State Tax
NYC = Room + Sales Tax 8.875% + Occupancy Tax 5.875% + Room Tax $2.00 + Room Unit Tax $1.55
Boston = Room + State Tax 5.7% + City Tax 6% + CCF Tax 2.75%
Philadelphia = Room + Lodging Tax 8.5% + Sales Tax 8%
In Europe they are much more civilized about it -- they just toss in some huge VAT tax (like 20%) and may or may not mention that it is "included" (how thoughtful of them.) In some places there are still more taxes - in Dublin Ireland, my hotel bill had the room fee, with VAT included, but also added "other local taxes and fees" amounting to 9.25% of that...
In general, the observation that taxing visitors [ballotpedia.org] is popular is accurate, and accelerating, it seems.
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While it is nice to have an all-inclusive price, it is important to be transparent
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Looking at Dallas (15.2% total), NYC (14.75% + $3.55), Boston (14.45%) and Philadelphia (16.5%), San Francisco sounds very reasonable at 14%.
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The fact that non-voters are paying the big is a big piece.
Another piece is that "tourist" or "convention" taxes go back into providing services that tourist or convention goers use. Somebody has to pay to clean up the "free" beaches. The argument goes that those hotels are bars would not exist if the convention center did not exist. Or at least that is the fig leaf that is used.
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They're not honest (Score:3)
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they just lost. That's all. I'm sure they fought mightily to avoid paying.
To be honest, would you pay tax that you didn't have to.
Don't get me wrong, I dont at all advocate tax evasion but you've got to be mad not to be trying to minimise your tax.
The big difference between Uber and AirBNB is that AirBNB tried to fight, yeah it was a forgone conclusion (I fought the tax dept and the tax dept won) but Uber is not even trying to fight the system at all, they're trying to ignore the system. This never works as the system won't ignore you. Its a toss up over whether Uber will g
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Can we go ahead and explain to Uber and Lyft that they need taxi licenses and to pay their share or gtfo.
Explain all you want. In some cities, taxi medallions are no longer being sold and the supply of taxis is being artificially limited.
Personally, I live in San Francisco and I'm sick and tired of not being able to catch a cab during peak hours. So I end up have to drive my car to work and pay exorbitant parking fees whenever I have to go somewhere after work that's not easily reachable via public transportation.
And no, I'm not black, in case you were wondering. Although, I suspect that increasing the supply
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How about AirBNB pays what they lawfully owe to other cities? I'm sure Austin, Dallas, Houston, Seattle, New York City, and many other places would like the bed taxes that they are due.
For example, a suspected AirBNB member lives fairly near me, who has multiple townhomes that he rents out as hotel rooms. I'm sure the bed taxes collected from the daily turnover of guests (4+ per condo, 8-10 come busy weekends) would at least pay for one fireman's salary for a year.
No wonder why the businesses who pay to b
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Can we go ahead and explain to Uber and Lyft that they need taxi licenses and to pay their share or gtfo.
False analogy. AirBNB should pay the hotel tax, because the playing field should be level. But to rent a room, you just need to pay the tax. You don't need to spend a small fortune for a "hotel license". Taxis, on the other hand, are a racket based on enforced artificial scarcity.
How long is rent going to go up before?dun dun dun (Score:1)
Re:How long is rent going to go up before?dun dun (Score:5, Insightful)
Because face time is important. Interacting with coworkers is important. Being able to go over a design at a whiteboard together rather than reading the same powerpoint slide separately is important. THe best ideas I've had in my career have been created as a result of talking to my coworkers over lunch/coffee break/tangent from another discussion. Telecommuting is a loss to productivity even if they are perfect about actually working (which having done it for a year- its not an easy thing to do, there's a lot of temptations). Its not only easily worth 15-30k, its worth 2-3 times that to have then onsite. That's ignoring the fact that a large number of people won't be on point when working from home- many without even meaning to cheat the system.
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Because face time is important. Interacting with coworkers is important. Being able to go over a design at a whiteboard together rather than reading the same powerpoint slide separately is important. THe best ideas I've had in my career have been created as a result of talking to my coworkers over lunch/coffee break/tangent from another discussion. Telecommuting is a loss to productivity even if they are perfect about actually working (which having done it for a year- its not an easy thing to do, there's a lot of temptations). Its not only easily worth 15-30k, its worth 2-3 times that to have then onsite. That's ignoring the fact that a large number of people won't be on point when working from home- many without even meaning to cheat the system.
As a developer I'll just say that "face time" and interacting with coworkers are two of the main impediments to me getting shit done.
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As a developer I'll just say that "face time" and interacting with coworkers are two of the main impediments to me getting shit done.
That's because you're a curmudgeon. :)
Obviously the people we work with can be distractions, but there's value in being in proximity with the team you work with at least some of the time even if that time is spent just building a sense of being a team.
I have the ability to WFH about 1 day a week now, and previously could do about 2. But I'm not sure even I'd want to do 5 if it were offered. My wife, who does sales, works out of our home (another reason not to be there, amirite!), but even she treks into t
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I would have to work (away from home) at something, at least part of the time, even if money was no longer a consideration.
Too many days off in a row and I don't have anything to measure against.
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So...back to the old paradigm of slipping the problem under your office door and hoping an answer falls out in a decade or so?
FAIL!
Back to the paradigm of getting your shit in order and knowing what you want before you ask me to build it.
Back to the paradigm of reading the emails I send out.
Back to the paradigm of responding to emails, answering questions therein (I even bold them for you!), and providing unambiguous responses. "Yes, that's fine." is not a proper response to an email containing 3 separate questions (none of which are satisfied with a "yes" or a "no").
Back to the paradigm of understanding your own business and policies
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You might want to suggest answers to the questions you ask, so that "Yes, that's fine" is actionable. Things like "What if the beflitter zongs? Shut down the gnord.".
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I do, but that doesn't help when there are 3 different questions questions and their response tells me they clearly didn't read the questions, my suggestions, or my notes explaining why I'm recommending what I'm recommending and what the implications of making that decision are. Inevitably, I'll get a call a month later asking if we can change that shit, and I'll refer to the previous email, only to get a "Oh, well it needs to be the other way." response.
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Assuming you work with people in your office. Due to globalization, there are a lot of groups that are dispersed and people work with others across cities, states, continents for a majority of their work.
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Not really. Face time is very little unless you're a manager type of employee and you can interact with coworkers over phone/video chat. They want employees on site so they can keep an eye on them, i.e. personally supervise them, otherwise the employees are likely to goof off.
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In almost any situation, you're going to have to have some defined times to directly interact with people. Nobody cares when I show up or leave as long as I don't abuse that, but there are meetings I normally have to attend.
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Most software developers are salaried. If commuting takes an hour a day, a standard 40-hour week becomes 45 hours out of the employee's week. That five hours is at least negotiable.
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No, they don't. At least my organization doesn't. My workday starts at xx:30, and ends at yy:zz. Whether I am telecommuting or not.
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How long until companies realize they can save 15,000-30,000 on paying their software engineers that telecommute.
It isn't that easy.
No, I'm not going to be Douchey McOfficedroneson and whine about "face time" (2005 called, and I believe I made out the words, "video", "conference", "skype", "you stupid excuse-spewing bitches") and other such nonsense.
Rather, when home becomes your place of work, you no longer have a home.
Do that for ten years. I have.
I'd murder someone to attend a boring, incoherent PowerPoint presentation. Hell, at this point, I'd actually stay awake during said presentation.
AirBNB is a bit bullshit, in my opinion (Score:1)
Posting as anon so I don't lose my mod points.
I just booked a cottage in Portland, OR for 4 nights. The price on the website was $65 a night - seemed reasonable. Price after AirBNB Fees and PDX Tax? $110 a night. Give me a break. Almost double for the fees? The tax was something like $14 a night, so AirBNB was pocketing a big chuck of money every fucking night. Last time I use them. Back to the Hilton for me; as a member I get a decent breakfast, access to the Executive Floor (free food and wine in
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Just curious, how much a night is a room at the hilton, including your membership?
The tax is all this was ever about (Score:1)
Cities don't give a ratfuck if your neighbors are pissed off. All they worry about is the tax. 14%? That's a steal compared to some places. That will of course double soon.
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By and large, cities do care if enough people get pissed off. That's a level of government where a few hundred angry people who organize can easily change the result of a city council election.
Re: The tax is all this was ever about (Score:1)
Taxes fix anything
The government will always (Score:2)
Better yet - overnight parking permits are $100 per year. Except where I live it's so fucking dense the house across from me has THREE cars parked on my side of the street. Good thing I don't have a car. And when I do finally give in and buy a car again I'll just make my own permit. Not many security features built