Airbnb wants to start collecting taxes from renters in New York starting this summer, The Post has learned.
The company is working on getting two bills passed by May that would allow it to collect the 14.7 percent hotel tax and pass it on to city and state authorities, a source close to the process said.
If successful, it aims to roll out its new tax collection tool in the Empire State by July 1.
Airbnb is also moving to collect hotel taxes on behalf of hosts in at least two other cities, San Francisco and Portland, Ore. But the company claims it is hindered in New York by laws that place the burden of collecting and paying taxes on the individual host.
Airbnb says it wants to do the work for them. Changing the laws would allow the company to tack on an extra charge for taxes on renters’ bills in the same way hotels do for their guests.
The fast-growing website, which allows people to rent their homes or rooms to travelers, is under fire from regulators, landlords and hotel operators, who say it is skirting tax laws and other regulations.
State Attorney General Eric Schneiderman turned up the heat last year when he subpoenaed Airbnb’s records to determine whether hosts have been paying their fair share of taxes.
Last month, Airbnb sent a letter to Mayor Bill de Blasio seeking to enlist his help in changing the laws, arguing the company would add $21 million to city and state coffers if it could act as the tax middleman.
The company also plans to appeal directly to the taxpaying public. In a blog post Monday, Airbnb’s head of public policy, David Hantman, will argue that the added tax revenue could be used to buy textbooks for 420,000 New York City public school kids and deliver 2.9 million meals to the elderly.
All goodwill aside, the six-year-old company, based in San Francisco, is eager to remove a big overhang for investors as it seeks to raise money.
Airbnb is reportedly in talks for late-stage funding from private-equity firm TPG Capital that would value it at $10 billion.
Resolving its tax headache would also smooth the road for an eventual initial public offering, experts said.
“When you have an IPO pending, the last thing you want is regulatory uncertainty,” said Sam Hamadeh, CEO of PrivCo, which analyzes private companies.
And Airbnb “is giving every clear signal of going public,” he added.
The tax issue isn’t the only regulatory obstacle facing the company, however. Airbnb is also dealing with a separate law that prohibits New Yorkers from renting out their homes for fewer than 30 days unless they are also present.
Airbnb’s efforts to change laws will meet with stiff resistance from the hospitality industry, which clearly sees it as a competitive threat. Hotel operators argue Airbnb is an illegitimate enterprise.
“For them to turn over a law to collect [occupancy] taxes is them just trying to legitimize what we see as an illegal business,” said Geoffrey Mills, chairman of the Hotel Association of New York City.
“We would oppose it, certainly,” he said of the proposed tax change.