by Karl Denninger
Market-Ticker.org
This has fallen out of the news to a large degree because AirBNB (in particular) has split taxes and fees out, but other places — here’s looking at you Snowshoe in WV — have not.
I’m talking about the wildly deceptive practice of putting out a price (on the web, usually) and then at the last screen just before you pay there’s a “Taxes and Fees” single line, not broken out at all — which could be 50% or more of the actual price!
What’s actually in “taxes and fees”? Good question. Sales tax is of course charged in virtually all jurisdictions and that’s an actual tax. Some areas have separate “hotel” or “occupancy” taxes specifically leveled on short-term rental housing (e.g. hotel rooms, AirBNBs, etc.) in addition to or as a replacement for sales tax, and a few resort areas have specific tourism development taxes that are specific to certain types of lodging (usually geographically based.)
But then there are fees, which are not taxes.