Tuesday, September 30, 2014

HomeAway Summit in Fort Lauderdale, FL

HotSpot was one of the sponsors of the HomeAway Summit in Fort Lauderdale this last weekend.  As always, it was a great opportunity to personally meet many property owners & managers, and other participants in the industry.  And it's always cool to interact with so many of our customers in person.

Key Takeaways
-Newbies to seasoned pros all find sales & occupancy tax requirements confusing
-Collecting the tax is easy. Registering & paying the tax is daunting

Shared War Stories
One owner we spoke with was told by a leading management company in her area that no tax was due since she was doing rent-by-owner.  After our discussion she followed up and spoke to the the company.  She learned the company is now under audit and has been giving incorrect advice about the taxes.  

Several owners with properties in Florida said they have been collecting the tax but are unsure how to register and where to pay it, an easy problem for us to solve.  Similarly, several other owners told us they thought the tax could be paid at year end, as part of their income tax filings.  Unfortunately, this is not correct either.

Another management company we met, with numerous properties in Florida, is using an accountant for the sales & tourist taxes and was filing for each property versus using umbrella accounts.  As a result they were paying their accountant significant amounts each month to do a large number of tax filings.  We will be able to streamline their processes and save them lots of money.   

We had many more of these interactions and hope we were able to help people, make the process less confusing and keep them out of tax trouble.  

Up Next
Next up is the San Diego conference in a few weeks.  Bring your war story!  We look forward to meeting more people and answering any questions about tax issues.





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