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Airbnb, in its ongoing battle with the traditional hotel industry, has added a new tool to its arsenal: bed taxes.
The online hospitality marketplace says it collected and remitted more than $18 million to Florida state and local governments in the first five months of 2017 off people who stayed in an Airbnb property. That includes $14.6 million delivered to the Florida Department of Revenue and another $4.6 million in new bed tax revenue to Florida counties.
At this pace, Airbnb will shatter its tax collection total of 2016, when it reeled in $20 million, according to a statement. The company remitted taxes on behalf of all 35,000 Airbnb hosts statewide.
“The state of Florida and so many of its counties are emerging as national models for how to harness the economic power of home sharing,” says Chris Lehane, Airbnb's global head of policy and communications, in a statement. “We are committed to serving as good partners to Florida's local governments, and we will not stop working until every Florida county is benefiting from new home-sharing tax revenue.”
Airbnb has bed tax agreements for 39 of the 63 Florida counties that assess the tax. It recently secured new bed tax agreements with six large counties, including Hillsborough, Polk and Sarasota.
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