Since they’re treating Airbnb in residential neighborhoods like hotels, do they have to pay the city a hotel tax?

The Southwest Louisiana Convention & Visitors Bureau, not the city of Lake Charles, levies a 4 percent tax on hotel and motel stays in Calcasieu Parish. The money is used to promote the area and attract events.

The enabling ordinance for the occupancy tax, approved by the visitors bureau in 1996 and based on state law, defines a hotel as “any establishment … engaged in the business of furnishing or providing rooms and overnight camping facilities intended or designed for dwelling, lodging or sleeping purposes to transient guests which establishment consists of two or more guest rooms.”

So if an Airbnb host has at least two guest rooms, he or she must collect the occupancy tax, which is paid to the Calcasieu Parish School Board’s Sales Tax Department.

Airbnb has agreements with the state and New Orleans area to collect sales and occupancy taxes on hosts’ behalf, but it has no such agreement with Lake Charles. And the company makes it clear on its website that hosts are responsible for remitting taxes that the company hasn’t taken responsibility for collecting.

“Occupancy tax is generally paid by the guest, but the obligation to remit the taxes to the government usually falls on the host,” reads a page on the company’s website. “We expect all hosts to familiarize themselves with and follow their local laws and regulations.”

Airbnb offers the following instructions to hosts:

“As an Airbnb host, if you determine that you need to collect occupancy tax, you can collect Occupancy Taxes by either adding it within a Special Offer or asking your guests to pay it in person. In each case, it’s important that guests are informed of the exact tax amount prior to booking. If you choose to collect Occupancy Taxes in person, please note that it should be collected only upon arrival and that we’re unable to assist with collection.”

According to the visitors bureau’s latest financial report, released in July by the state Legislative Auditor’s Office, the tourism agency took in more occupancy tax revenue in 2015 than in 2014 “primarily due to the operations of Golden Nugget.”

Occupancy tax revenue totaled $4.27 million in 2014 and $5.46 million in 2015.

www.calcasieusalestax.org; www.lla.la.gov.

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Handful of inmates in country illegally

How many illegal immigrants are in the Calcasieu Parish jail?

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