“They already tax our money in the bank, we pay the Property Tax (IPI), the Transfer of Industrialized Goods and Services (ITBIS), and now they want us to pay taxes on rents.”.
SANTO DOMINGO.- The proposal to tax the Airbnb platform has been met with resistance from representatives of real estate agencies who believe that this would trigger a chain of negative factors for the real estate industry.
“If we really go by this information, hotels have hundreds of exemptions and also receive reservations from tour operators that are paid for outside the country,” explained Francisco Irizarry, of Giglio Irizarry Real Estate Advisors.
Recently, Andrés Marranzini, executive vice president of the Dominican Republic's Hotel and Restaurant Association (Asonahores), stated that the government has an opportunity to generate revenue without harming the established dynamics by implementing taxes and controls on room rental platforms.
Irizarry, an expert in the model with more than 130 short-term rental properties, understands that, like the service costs charged to each guest, the hotel's profit is pure benefit, and he maintained that if the measure were applied, it would have a domino effect in the real estate field.
“They already tax our money in the bank, we pay the Property Tax (IPI), the Tax on the Transfer of Industrialized Goods and Services (ITBIS), and now they want us to pay taxes on rentals?” asked the Airbnb representative.
Founded in 2008, as of January of this year this platform had 2.9 million hosts worldwide, with 14,000 new hosts joining every month, more than 7 million listings, 100,000 cities and 220 countries and regions with active listings, according to the Stratos Jet Charters Inc. blog.
Mónica Florián of Moni Host Vacation Rentals in Punta Cana believes the discount offered through Airbnb is already more than sufficient. “The platform itself charges a 15% service fee, which is covered by the host.”.
He noted that adding another percentage of tax would significantly affect the host's income.
