PARIS: Home rental platform Airbnb paid €7.3 million in tourist tax to 19 French municipalities in 2016, and plans to expand its automatic tax collection system to 31 more cities across France this year.
Airbnb was the first platform to automatically collect and remit tourist taxes to city authorities on behalf of hosts, it said in a statement.
The platform reached an agreement with French authorities on the collection of taxes in August 2015 after the French government published a decree demanding that internet platforms take on this role. Previously, home-sharing hosts were expected to collect the tax and send this to the authorities themselves.
The agreement followed the introduction of the Bill ALUR in France in 2014, which simplified the legal rules around home sharing in France.
Airbnb will extend its automatic tax collection initiative to a further 31 cities in France, covering “other popular destinations across the French regions and ski resorts” by the spring of 2017, it said.
“Moving forwards, we want to collect and remit tourist taxes in all cities in France which levy tourist taxes and where we are allowed and able to collect and remit tax on behalf of hosts. To that aim, we are also working with officials in the national government to develop a system that allows us to automatically collect and remit tourist taxes in all applicable cities,” Airbnb said.
Since 2014, the company has remitted more than €175 million in hotel, tourist and occupancy taxes to more than 220 cities and communities worldwide, it said.
