Columbia tourism leaders could discuss hotel tax ordinance change

Columbia Convention and Visitors Bureau Director Amy Schneider said the Missouri Hotel Lodging Association approached her several months ago about reviewing the city’s lodging tax ordinance. She said MHLA indicated each city and town in Missouri was reviewing theirs.

“Missouri Hotel Lodging Association came to our office and said there’s all these internet companies, like Airbnb, that are renting their rooms and they’re not being charged any taxes,” she said. “We thought maybe you would want to look at the ordinance.”

ABC17 News looked into Airbnb’s policy regarding lodging or occupancy tax. The company’s Midwest spokesperson, Benjamin Breit, said it has worked out agreements with certain states that allow “us to collect and remit the taxes on behalf of our hosts.”

Airbnb is the only short-term rental platform that does those types of deals and Breit said it is a way to make life easier for the hosts and bring new revenue to local governments.

Schneider said the current ordinance in Columbia requires an establishment that rents 12 or more rooms to pay the lodging tax.

“Each city has a different amount of rooms that people have to pay in order to be charged the lodging tax,” she said.

Breit said the company knows about the minimum room requirement for Columbia and the company would like to see it changed.

“Our hosts want to pay their fair share and we want to help,” he said in an email. “We would absolutely support an update to the local short-term rental ordinance that would allow us to do the same in Columbia.”

Schneider said the Convention and Visitors Bureau Advisory Board will have a conversation about this at its next meeting to see if it would have a recommendation about the number of rooms required for lodging tax to be considered.

Schneider said they don’t have a way to tell if companies like Airbnb are costing the city any money in hotel tax.

“Right now, depending on the day, depending on the week, you have a different amount each time,” she said. “You can have 20 one day and you can have 120 the next. It depends upon the city’s demand.”

The board will discuss the ordinance and possibly make a recommendation to lower it, keep it the same or do something else. Then the recommendation goes to City Council and council members will consider it. The public will also get a chance to weigh in on that change, should it come to fruition.

“It’s not anything that’s going to happen overnight,” said Schneider.

ABC17 News reached out to the Missouri Hotel Lodging Association for comment but had not heard back at the time this story was published.

editor’s note: this story has been updated to provide information from Airbnb Midwest spokesperson Ben Breit