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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

#61

Post by rayiner »

dmix wrote: post #12
jostmey wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe we should be asking why some industries are heavily taxed and others are not

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.

All else being equal, customers love paying less for the same thing. But they don't necessarily like the implications at scale. E.g. would New Yorkers vote to raise property or income taxes to make up for the $1.8 billion that would be lost from hospitality taxes?

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

#62

Post by EdHominem »

NSAID wrote: post #52
coding123 wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

My wife and are getting licensed for foster care, and this week I'm installing several smoke detectors and CO detectors. We're required to have a minimum of one CO and smoke detector per floor, and an additional smoke detector in each bedroom. Was our house acceptably safe without those? Probably. Is it going to be better now? Certainly. It's a bit of work installing 7+ devices, but I understand that we've reduced a…

That's probably just changes in the regs since the house was built, not that foster children (or tourists in the case of a hotel) are more fragile than others.

Good standards are good, double standards are not.

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

#63

Post by okreallywtf »

wyager wrote: post #25
digitaltrees wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Public safety regulations are not pointless red tape. They are created after real tragedy that shows a clear need. In fact, fire regulations in NY first applied to apartments, while hotel owners fought for decades to avoid the regulation require it fire escapes (Read the following for more information http://www.uvm.edu/histpres/HPJ/AndreThesis.pdf ) Even after fire escapes were mandated hundreds of people died in a…

> 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…

Do you have citations for any of this? Where are you getting your 90% numbers?

The parent post doesn't cite specific numbers about how many regulations were put into place as a direct result of a tragedy but they do directly cite some examples, which you do not.

Nobody (literally, anti-regulation straw man arguments not withstanding) opposes pointless regulation and nobody would be opposed to periodic reviews of existing regulations to ensure they are still applicable. The problem is that anti-regulation arguments tend to demonize nearly all (if not all) regulations as being burdensome. Having arbitrary rules [1] about regulations does nothing for progressing the conversation. If you want to be taken seriously you need to cite examples of these regulations, its easy to find ones that are directly related to past tragedies, it should be as easy to cite your examples?

> Are you really under the impression that the competitive advantage of AirBnB comes from ignoring fire code? That's insane for multiple reasons, but mostly that all residential buildings (including AirBnBs) have to obey fire code already.

I don't think you are taking into account two things:

1) The fire codes for residential homes and for hotels are very different. It makes sense that they are, they are very different structures but that doesn't mean that people who stay in an AirBnB shouldn't expect some extra safety features like emergency lighting and more smoke alarms, fire extinguishers etc. If you were staying on the 2nd floor of a house that you did not live in and there was a fire and there was no power or emergency lighting or exit signs or fire extinguishers and only 1 smoke alarm on the other side of the house and you had to find your way out in the complete dark how would you feel?

2. There are a lot of grandfathered-in houses out there that have 1 fire alarm, no CO alarm and totally out of date electrical wiring. These same big old houses also have a high chance of being the kind of place that is used as an AirBnB (in my experience).

There is (like always) a reasonable middle-ground here - AirBnB's should be subject to more regulation than normal homes because a howeowner (unlike a tenant) knows the home, has chosen to live there and accepted the possible risks and has the opportunity to ensure the home is up to current codes (even if it is grandfathered in). However it makes little sense to apply the same regulations a huge hotel building with massive occupancy with a (typically) 1 to 2 story structure that you could likely escape much easier due to the size and due to the fact that a worst-case scenario has a much lower deathtoll (even if a single death is a tragedy).

[1] http://www.forbes.com/sites/waynecrews/2016/11/22/donald-tru...

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

#64

Post by rayiner »

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.

Visitors use a ton of resources--they should pay for them. E.g. think about all the money that goes into security for Times Square.

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

#65

Post by ec109685 »

wyager wrote: post #40
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…

> Most of those regulations were put in place to protect communities and customers I don't have much of an issue with communities using zoning rules to prevent AirBnBing. That's a separate issue from top-down hotel regulations. The cost of "protecting" me from hotels is several orders of magnitude higher than the value I get from these "protections". Of course, most of the cost of hotel regulation is hotel taxes (whi…

It would be helpful to cite some of the things you are arguing. What basis do you base your opinion that hotel protections are several orders of magnitude than the value?

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

#66

Post by wyager »

adamsea wrote: post #57
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…

Just want to point out that the parent post cited specific evidence, with links to a fairly reputable source (wikipedia), to support their claims, which your counter-post lacks.

What is your point? I'm making an argument that can stand or fall on its own. Dropping links that don't add any semantic value is a cheap trick to buy the appearance of a strong argument, but doesn't change the meaning of anything in the post. The GGP post just added some links to stories about historical building fires, which we all already knew existed and added nothing of substance to his argument, but it still managed to convince you that it boosted the credibility of all the other unrelated stuff he said.

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

#67

Post by Xylakant »

Symmetry wrote: post #47
DanBC wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 l…

> 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.

Uber has been cited multiple times in Germany because it did not enforce the required insurance for its drivers, instead letting them drive with a private insurance.

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

#68

Post by wyager »

stuckagain wrote: post #58
wyager wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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/doc…

Those are the codes for building a new building. The codes change but the buildings don't have to. You can occupy a 100-year-old building in San Antonio if you feel like doing it. No regulatory bureaucracy will be concerned.

Any time you do a renovation you have to bring everything up to code. No one is going to stay in a rotting 100-year-old house that's never been renovated.

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

#69

Post by NSAID »

EdHominem wrote: post #62
NSAID wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My wife and are getting licensed for foster care, and this week I'm installing several smoke detectors and CO detectors. We're required to have a minimum of one CO and smoke detector per floor, and an additional smoke detector in each bedroom. Was our house acceptably safe without those? Probably. Is it going to be better now? Certainly. It's a bit of work installing 7+ devices, but I understand that we've reduced a…

That's probably just changes in the regs since the house was built, not that foster children (or tourists in the case of a hotel) are more fragile than others. Good standards are good, double standards are not.

Right, but my view is that certain "qualifying events" should trigger public interest requirements for more safety.

Buying a house? Make sure stuff is up to code, get an inspector, but it's on you.

Housing kids for the state? There's a public interest in making sure they're safe.

Renting out a room or building? Safe thing (and there are already regulations here that are stricter than those applying to private he owners)

Renting out a room or house short term? Again, same thing. This should at least be the same as a long term rental.

EDIT: anyway, my original point was that there is precedence for safety regs even if you don't have long hallways or tall buildings.

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

#70

Post by EdHominem »

empath75 wrote: post #50
EdHominem wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

Oh, you're a "snarky dismal" guy?

And in America, we all are. Taxes taken without representation, for no good purpose, are theft.

Otherwise you'd be good with a 100% tax rate, right?

The way we ensure good laws, and reasonable taxes, is to call out all unreasonable cases.

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