The number of short-term rental operators who are paying the transient occupancy tax on their rentals has more than doubled over the past 16 months, following a county effort to find the non-compliant and inform them of their responsibility to remit taxes.
Today, there are 837 active registrations countywide; in October 2018 the department of finance had 345 registrations.
The uptick comes after Marin contracted Host Compliance to monitor more than 25 rental websites, where over 500 non-compliant operators were found. Of those, 97 percent registered after the county sent them letters.
“We’re taking these steps in fairness to all the other short-term rental operators who have complied with the local ordinance,” said Roy Given, the county’s director of finance. He couldn’t estimate how much Host Compliance’s web monitoring found in tax revenue because it coincided with other programs to register short-term rentals.
In 2018, the county offered rental operators a one-month amnesty from back taxes, and the Board of Supervisors passed an ordinance that required short-term rental owners to notify neighbors about their property’s use, either with letters or signs.
Supervisor Dennis Rodoni said the county is now hearing fewer complaints related to renter issues like noise and parking.
“In general, the good neighbor policy has been helpful because people know who the operators are and they have a way to contact them,” he said.
The rule also led to more reports of rentals that the county could then seek to register, Mr. Given said. The county raised $3.7 million in fiscal year 2017, $4.5 million in 2018 and $5 million in 2019 from the countywide 10 percent transient occupancy tax.
At the start of last year, Measure W took effect and the tax on overnight visitors in West Marin rose from 10 to 14 percent. The 4 percent increase generated another $1.25 million in revenue last year; half will go to firefighting efforts and half will go toward housing.
But the implementation of the Measure W tax increase has also undergone some growing pains, especially for operators who rent their space using Airbnb.
The online platform collected the tax at the old rate for 35 rentals this year, leading the county to send collection letters to those operators for the 4 percent shortfall. The total amount they collectively owed was over $20,000, but Mr. Given said Airbnb contacted his office and agreed to pay the difference.
Airbnb spokeswoman Mattie Zazueta couldn’t explain why the company has been collecting taxes incorrectly.
“City and county boundaries aren’t always clear, and if we’re made aware that taxes weren’t collected on a booking where it was applicable, we work to fix the issue,” she wrote in a statement.