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The City of Bonavista has taken a new approach to dealing with airbnb hosts who represent unfair competition for hotels and bread-and-breakfast ins because they don't pay business taxes. They cut your sewer and water lines.
Bonavista cuts off services for Airbnb operators with unpaid business tax bills.
"We have gone to some pretty serious measures to collect. We have literally dug up driveways and turned off water (and) sewer service until the bill is paid, cutting them off completely from all municipal services.
-- Mayor John Norman
If people can't even drive their car onto your property, take a shower, use the toilet, you're pretty motivated to pony up.
The mayor said the taxation method has been successful, but he acknowledges not all Airbnb owners are pleased.
"I don't think some are happy about it, but it is what it is."
This is a pretty effective fix to unfair competition by airbnb hosts. The next question is, how can we apply the same thinking to uber and lyft?
(Score: 0, Interesting) by khallow on Wednesday September 11 2019, @04:12AM (3 children)
(Score: 5, Insightful) by barbara hudson on Wednesday September 11 2019, @01:13PM (2 children)
Wrong. Airbnb, by not paying legitimate taxes, erode the tax base.
Airbnb destroys communities when it takes over entire city blocks. Temporary visitors don't buy monthly bus passes, don't do their weekly grocery orders, don't volunteer with local community groups, and they increase costs to the taxpayers because of noise and other complaints.
Nobody wants to have a neighbour who is running an Airbnb. You have no more right to run an Airbnb in a residential zone than you do to run an abattoir or a car assembly plant or a body shop.
The beauty of this approach is that cities have more power to deal with recalcitrant tenants who run illegal short-term rentals than landlords do. The landlord has to go through the courts. The city can just send an inspector, see that the place is being used contrary to municipal bylaws, and turn off the water.
Don't like it - move to a city that allows short-term rentals without requiring a permit.
But don't be surprised that those cities can't afford proper public transit, police, and fire, because they haven't got the tax base.
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(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 11 2019, @05:48PM
fuck the city and their tax base. fuck a business tax. what people do to make money is none of the parasites' business. Why don't those pieces of shit learn a skill and get a fucking job? those goddamn thieves have more than enough money already.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday September 12 2019, @12:50AM
Let us note that the Airbnb places still pay taxes and hence the tax base is still there. They just don't pay as much as the town would like.
I suspect more that those cities won't be able to afford your list because they're corrupt, valuing the protection of various cartels over the low cost provision of services that the community relies on.
I'm good with that. May the best community win.