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Best way to collect taxes that VRBO doesn't collect for owners

Rich S
Dec 22, 2019 3:08 PM
Joined Dec, 2018 301 posts

Since Oct 1st on VRBO I've been issuing a followup payment for an additional 8.5% taxes (town & village), since VRBO only collect state and county taxes.

I was advised by VRBO to do this instead of increasing my rates proportionally, but it's an inconvenience for me and a kind of bait/switch for guests.

When I recently enabled the Airbnb API I decided to include the extra 8.5% in my rates, and I imagine that will work well also.

I'm thinking I could configure OR to push rates (I only use spot rates) that add the 8.5% taxes, same as I'm already doing with Airbnb.

Does anyone have a recommendation one way versus the other?

Chris Hynes
Dec 23, 2019 6:37 PM
OR Team Member Joined Oct, 2012 1400 posts

Yes, you could do an adjuster on the channel or a listing site specific surcharge and those would be added to the rates.

Right now Airbnb is the only channel where channel bridge will factor back out the taxes you configure though.

I though VRBO was allowing you to set a % for extra taxes? Or at least, back earlier this year when they started remitting taxes they said that was "coming soon". Crazy they still don't.

If you can get to 5 properties, of course, that all goes away because with VRBO API they use the tax settings from OwnerRez and pass it all through to you instead of remitting on their own.