Windsor receives $70K from Airbnb after first 6 months of collecting taxes

The City of Windsor is getting $70,000 from Airbnbafter the first six months of taxing renters.

The online marketplace for short-term rentals has been charging a four per cent municipal accommodation tax (MAT) to guest bills in the city, since April 1.

"We think it's a great number," saidAlex Dagg, director of public policy for Airbnb in Canada.

"We're excited to be able to contribute those kinds of funds to Windsor to help them with tourism promotion and other things to drive more people coming to see Windsor."

She added that Windsor is one of the "earlier adopters" of the relatively new tax.

Airbnb started collecting the tax from Ottawa renters in August 2018.Taxes are also collected in Sudbury and Mississauga.

The company has more than 400 tax agreements aroundthe world.

"In times of tough budgets for cities, having some extra income coming in from people coming to stay in your community, I think is great for any community regardless of the size of it it's really helpful," Dagg said.

Windsor investing in Tourism

As for what Windsor will do with this additional money coming in, the city's communications director Jason Moore said the funds will go into a reserve for "future investments in tourism projects and programs."

In an email statement, Moore said a report on the MAT tax will be presented to city council "in due course."

As for whether or not the company is looking to have the same arrangement with other municipalities in the Windsor-Essex area, Dagg said, not at this time.

She explained that Airbnb takes on the administrative load of tax collection and remittance, so they have "limited capacity" to be able to do the same for smaller communities.

However, she said there are talks about potentially working with multiple small municipalities together in "one shot" to alleviate the administrative challenges of handling taxesindividually.

The total amount raised in taxes for Windsor so far helps the company get a sense of what that will look like going forward, and Dagg said thatwith the platform continuing to grow, she expects the amount collected in taxes to increase over time as well.