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Up to a third of Airbnb's price gap with hotels is due to tax treatment

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Re: Up to a third of Airbnb's price gap with hotels is due to tax treatment

#41

Post by baddox »

digitaltrees wrote: post #29
dmix wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just look how successful the products are (not talking about the companies) without heavy government intervention. Both of those would not exist if they had followed laws designed a (half?) century ago for different types of businesses. And customers love those services. Rather than finding a common working ground that keeps customers happy that outnumber those unhappy with it by 100:1 and instead updates laws like i…

So are you saying we should get rid of any regulation where "customers love a service" that doesn't follow the regulation? So we should allow a contract killer for hire on-line marketplace because drug cartels would really love to book their preferred hit man from an iPhone app?

No, I think it's reasonable to look at who is benefited and harmed by a regulation. The morality of contract killing is probably not very controversial. The vast majority of people would oppose it even if no laws or government existed.

Re: Up to a third of Airbnb's price gap with hotels is due to tax treatment

#42

Post by tomcam »

baddox wrote: post #34
wmeredith wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Customers love Uber because it's prices are currently subsidized by VC money. Once that goes away, we'll see how competitive they are.

Are there any good sources for Uber's unit costs versus prices? I would be surprised if all rides in all markets are subsidized by VC money. I would expect most of the VC money is being spent on expansion (more cities and more drivers) and that Uber service is actually profitable in mature markets. There are several articles claiming that Uber is profitable in the US.

This is the only in-depth treatment I have found. It's damning: http://aswathdamodaran.blogspot.com/2014/06/a-disruptive-cab...

Re: Up to a third of Airbnb's price gap with hotels is due to tax treatment

#43

Post by jellicle »

wyager wrote: post #6
darpa_escapee wrote: post #4

It's almost as if AirBnB, Uber et al get by on skirting the law other people have to follow.

"Skirting the law" is loaded language that makes it sound as though they are doing something illegal. They are not. It's true, though; the reason companies like AirBnB and Uber are so vastly superior to the entrenched competition is that they don't have to deal with all the ridiculous and pointless red tape that makes taxis so horrendous and American hotels so insanely expensive. I'm not sure how anyone can recognize…

> as though they are doing something illegal. They are not.

Of course they are. And Uber has been fined/sued/charged hundreds if not thousands of times for doing just that. The penalties have proved insufficient to deter them from their illegal racketeering operation, however.

Re: Up to a third of Airbnb's price gap with hotels is due to tax treatment

#44

Post by wyager »

stuckagain wrote: post #30
wyager wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Public safety regulations are not pointless red tape. This is the typical refrain of people who are trying to pitch pointless red tape; "it's about public safety!" Of course, 90% of regulations in any given industry have nothing to do with "safety" and everything to do with sustaining the bureaucracy that created them. Even those regulations that are nominally intended to increase safety are often counterproductive…

Actually no, owner-occupied residential buildings do not have to meet codes, under the liberal belief that it's OK for a person to subject themselves knowingly to certain hazards. However it is not OK for that owner to subject others to those hazards, which is why hotels and rental properties have to meet those codes even as the codes change. Therefore it is a regulatory advantage of AirBNB that unregulated residence…

> Actually no, owner-occupied residential buildings do not have to meet codes,

You are just straight up incorrect. No two ways about it. I'm actually a little surprised someone could have this little exposure to the residential regulatory bureaucracy. Maybe that's why you can support it.

Here are some (not all) of the residential building codes that apply here.

https://www.tdhca.state.tx.us/single-family/training/docs/14...

http://www.sanantonio.gov/DSD/Resources/Codes

Re: Up to a third of Airbnb's price gap with hotels is due to tax treatment

#45

Post by empath75 »

wmeredith wrote: post #20
dmix wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just look how successful the products are (not talking about the companies) without heavy government intervention. Both of those would not exist if they had followed laws designed a (half?) century ago for different types of businesses. And customers love those services. Rather than finding a common working ground that keeps customers happy that outnumber those unhappy with it by 100:1 and instead updates laws like i…

Customers love Uber because it's prices are currently subsidized by VC money. Once that goes away, we'll see how competitive they are.

I actually preferred uber when it first launched and it was kind of expensive and you got nicer cars and more professional drivers.

Re: Up to a third of Airbnb's price gap with hotels is due to tax treatment

#46

Post by AJ007 »

stale2002 wrote: post #33
logicallee wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

could you add in your analysis of airbnb or how it relates to what you've written - you've left it entirely out of your paragraph and I can't draw an immediate conclusion. (Though maybe you were adding information about hotel taxation without any thoughts about airbnb or how it relates.)

It is related to AirBnB because there is an argument that the tax is unfair to consumers to begin with. It is designed to screw over foreigners.

Tourists use a cities resources that the residents(former, current, and future) paid for. Would it be better they paid an income tax and received voting rights?

Re: Up to a third of Airbnb's price gap with hotels is due to tax treatment

#47

Post by Symmetry »

DanBC wrote: post #31
dmix wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just look how successful the products are (not talking about the companies) without heavy government intervention. Both of those would not exist if they had followed laws designed a (half?) century ago for different types of businesses. And customers love those services. Rather than finding a common working ground that keeps customers happy that outnumber those unhappy with it by 100:1 and instead updates laws like i…

> And customers love those services. Until they die in a fire in a building that doesn't follow fire code; or are seriously injured in a possibly uninsured Uber[1] car. [1] Uber provides insurance to US drivers. I don't think they provide it anywhere else.

The regulations that Uber is skirting are based on the problems caused by taxi drivers otherwise being anonymous. Since Uber can connect drivers to rides and handles payment the problems that plagued pre-regulation taxis aren't a concern in this case. We shouldn't reflexively assume that all regulation is bad, but we shouldn't reflexively assume that all regulation is good either. As with Chesterton's fence, always look at why something was created before saying whether it should continue or stop.

Injuries by uninsured drivers in places where valid insurance isn't required to drive isn't really a thing you can lay on Uber. It applies to every car on the road in those countries.

Re: Up to a third of Airbnb's price gap with hotels is due to tax treatment

#48

Post by Symbiote »

jdavis703 wrote: post #22

Hotels are heavily taxed because tourists and business travellers can't vote. In many cases cities like London and NYC are non-fungible goods, so if you want to go there you just have to pay the taxes. If they ever get high enough that hotels can't book rooms, the businesses should lobby the government to lower them.

There are no special hotel taxes in London. Hotels pay the same taxes as most other businesses.

Re: Up to a third of Airbnb's price gap with hotels is due to tax treatment

#49

Post by rhizome »

coding123 wrote: post #16
JohnTHaller wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hotel taxes support infrastructure and city services. And things like proper safety and fire regulations in hotels ensure that guests know where fire exits are, that fire extinguishers are available and operational, that smoke detectors are present in the proper locations and functioning, etc. All of those things cost money. AirBnB offers none of those things. It took a string of deadly hotel fires in the 70s to get…

I'm not coming from any experience in this comment, but I'm wondering if AirBNB rentals will ever have such extra regulation since there are no long-hotel hallways, no fire-escapes, elevators, etc... simply because these are already residences - are we to suggest we need normal homes to be safer than they already are? If these places are "unsafe" in this regard, shouldn't it be improved whether or not they are being…

Fire escapes aren't required merely to look cool, they provide a second form of egress from a hotel room in the event of e.g. a fire, which is a common requirement and not relevant to houses which will have other forms of secondary egress. Even so, my non-hotel apartment has a fire escape because the hallway through the front door is the only other path out of the building.

Re: Up to a third of Airbnb's price gap with hotels is due to tax treatment

#50

Post by empath75 »

EdHominem wrote: post #28
mdorazio wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which hotel regulations do you think are overly onerous and ridiculous? Most of those regulations were put in place to protect communities and customers, not the hotels themselves. Zoning laws prevent tourists from overrunning resident communities where people don't want them. Safety and health regulations ensure that customers won't get injured or sick during their stay. Taxes help cities pay for all the improvement…

> Which hotel regulations do you think are overly onerous and ridiculous? The many extra taxes and tariffs on guests. Occupancy taxes, tourism improvement fees, etc, that the city is only able to capture by abusing its control over the hotels. It's easy to pass laws that don't affect people who live in your area because nobody is that motivated to stop you. Hotels and other legitimate businesses suffer because the ci…

oh, you're a 'taxes are theft' guy.
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