Thursday, May 7, 2015

5 Tips to Earn More from Your Vacation Rental Business

QuickBooks has published an article of quick tips to earn more from your vacation rental business. Be sure to read section 4. on lodging taxes and see what our founder and resident expert, Rob Stephens, has to say!

Wednesday, May 6, 2015

HomeAway Atlanta Summit

Another great HomeAway Summit in Atlanta this last weekend.  It was nice to meet many new people, connect with old friends and learn the latest from the HomeAway team about new product features and marketing efforts.  A special thanks to so many of our customers that stopped by our booth to say hello. 

A couple of new developments this year.  A new member of our team, Amber, attended for the first time.  Thank you Amber, you were great!  This was our first conference under the Avalara flag, the Avalara freebies at the booth were popular and generated lots of questions about our new name.    

On the lodging tax front...as often happens at the Summit, we met property owners with a wide range of issues and questions about lodging taxes.  There were owners that have been doing the taxes themselves, owners that had no idea they had to collect and remit taxes, owners that had been collecting tax but unsure how to pay them, questions about cleaning fees and other tax matters.  We also had a few owners that have been assessed tens of thousands in back taxes for not compliance and taxes owed.  We hate to see this as there are so many ways we can keep owners out of trouble and make the lodging taxes really easy.

Please! If you have questions or are not sure what to do about lodging taxes, give us a call. 


Thanks for a great conference and we will see everyone in Denver!

Monday, May 4, 2015

Financial Safari radio interview: Lodging Tax with Avalara's Rob Stephens


We’re always looking for ways to educate vacation rental homeowners about the ins and outs of lodging taxes.  Take a listen to the following radio interview with Rob Stephens, co-founder of MyLodgeTax, and get the skinny on lodging tax in the vacation rental industry.  You’ll feel yourself getting smarter as you listen!

Tuesday, March 31, 2015

The Homeowners Guide to Vacation Rentals

US News and World Report has put out a great article highlighting the "difficult" parts of renting your home on Airbnb or VRBO. The following quote was particularly insightful.

"Rentals are treated like hotels in most geographies now, and owners need their properties to comply to local rules. The biggest one is occupancy tax, and a number of different municipalities have licensing requirements to be able to rent out on a short-term basis."

The article advises homeowners to check local ordinances regarding taxes & licensing, offers information about insurance policies, and provides insight on cleaning and maintenance. Click below to learn more!

http://money.usnews.com/money/personal-finance/articles/2015/03/24/the-homeowners-guide-to-vacation-rentals

Monday, March 2, 2015

HotSpot is now Avalara MyLodgeTax


Since our beginnings in 2003, we've made it our goal to provide you, the rental owners and managers, solutions that eliminate the tax complexities of renting your properties. Today we're taking another exciting step in achieving those goals and have joined the Avalara team!

Avalara is a cloud-based provider of global tax compliance for businesses of all sizes. Our combined forces will allow us to take our vision even further. We are proud of what we've accomplished, but we've only scratched the surface of the opportunities ahead. With Avalara's talent, resources, and expertise in tax, we’ll be able to do more faster.

Moving forward HotSpot will become Avalara MyLodgeTax.  So don't be surprised when you start seeing changes. 

As always, we thank you for your continued support and look forward to making tax compliance even easier for you!


Rob Stephens
Co-Founder


To learn more about Avalara, start by reading their announcement here

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