Direct Premium Tax Transparency
It is not clear how the tax is being calculated on Direct Premium, which complicates filing and remitting sales taxes to the county and state. Further, it seems that the tax rate collected changes between bookings. In order to help us remit proper taxes, there should be transparency in which charges and fees are part of the tax calculation and the percentage used to calculate the tax.
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Comments4
Maroon Sun
Feb 19
Hospitable needs an actual CPA on their staff that understands U.S. taxes and designs the reports we need.
When they started filing Virginia Sales & Use Tax on our behalf beginning October 1, 2025, the fine print shows that the date is based on when people book, not when they stay. That means there were reservations on our books after October 1, 2025 that still had pass-through taxes. Since Virginia requires we pay taxes based on the date of the stay, it didn’t even occur to me to check that and I thought I could file a zero return beginning in Q4.
Sometimes Hospitable shows pass-through taxes on reservations that have been cancelled and 100% refunded. I understand Hospitable still wants to collect host fees from us in those cases, but we certainly don’t pay pass-through taxes that we never collected. Why do they show on a report?
When generating reports, the number Hospitable shows as “Revenue” is NOT revenue since it includes pass through taxes and is reduced by host fees. I didn’t realize this error until waaaay too far into 2025 and had to amend some tax filings and pay penalties.
I asked Hospitable if I can simply pay all of the taxes on my own, but it isn’t possible as a direct premium subscriber. VERY frustrating!
Indigo Magnetosphere
Feb 12
Hello
Crimson Serval
Feb 3
I agree the tax calculations on direct quotes is all over the board. Their AI system was even confused. I’m waiting to talk to a CS agent now. I hope they get it all worked out sooner rather than later.
Rose Beaver
Mar 10, 2025
Yes this is very frustrating. They charge occupancy taxes on certain line items, sales taxes on others, but then they just collect a lump sum and report the total taxes collected, so we still have to go back each month to figure out how much we actually owe in sales taxes vs. occupancy taxes.