95.3 / 88.5 FM Grand Rapids and 95.3 FM Muskegon
Play Live Radio
Next Up:
0:00
0:00
0:00 0:00
Available On Air Stations

Kent County Announces Tax Agreement With Airbnb

airbnb logo
temoignagechretien.fr

Kent County and Airbnb recently announced a tax agreement authorizing the company to collect hotel taxes on behalf of Kent County hosts. 

County officials say this levels the playing field.

A new tax agreement is now in place and Kent County expects to benefit from people visiting the region and staying longer through home sharing or Airbnb’s. 

Here’s Matthew VanZetten, Assistant County Administrator.

“What the agreement does is when someone comes to stay at an Airbnb they’ll be charged the 5% excise lodging tax and Airbnb will be collecting it for their homes and remitting directly to Kent County. So the guests that come to Kent County will be paying a little more but the homeowners or those renting, it should be seamless for them because Airbnb will be collecting it and distributing it to Kent County on their behalf.”

County experts say “The Voluntary Collection Agreement” as it’s called, allows Airbnb hosts to operate without having to try to calculate occupancy taxes.  It also simplifies collection and audit processes.  Kent County Administrator/Controller, Wayman Britt says “Our hotel /lodging industry should be treated fair and equitably.”  VanZetten adds, it levels the playing field.

“I would just say it makes it so the playing field fair..  Hotels are responsible for collecting the lodging excise tax and remitting to the county and this keeps the playing field fair and will help the county make its bond payments on the convention center.”

With the tax agreement in place, Kent County will fully benefit from people visiting the region and staying longer through home sharing.

Collecting and remitting hotel taxes can be incredibly complicated. The rules were designed for traditional hospitality providers and large hotel corporations with teams of lawyers and accountants. For this reason, Airbnb has partnered with over 370 local governments throughtout the U.S. to collect and remit taxes, making the process easy for hosts to pay their fair share while contributing new revenue for local governments.

This marks Airbnb’s third tax agreement in Michigan.

The agreement goes into effect August first.

Jennifer is an award winning broadcast news journalist with more than two decades of professional television news experience including the nation's fifth largest news market. She's worked as both news reporter and news anchor for television and radio in markets from Grand Rapids and Kalamazoo all the way to San Francisco, California.