Commissioners press for detailed Airbnb/short-term-rental remittance data to aid auditing

County leaders said recent remittances from short-term rental platforms (Airbnb/VRBO and other third-party administrators) have increased collections, but the county receives lump-sum checks with limited detail. Commissioners and staff said they need property-level information and more frequent reporting (preferably monthly) to reconcile collections, ensure the right tax class has been applied and resolve disputes between municipalities and the county over which jurisdiction should receive an occupancy or lodging share.

Officials described practical problems they have encountered: postal-address and ZIP-code mismatches that route some remittances to municipal rather than county accounts, difficulty auditing whether a property was taxed as owner-occupied or commercial, and limited assessor resources to chase listings on platform websites.

Commissioners asked staff to pursue statutory language used in other states requiring third-party administrators to provide lists of properties, addresses and amounts collected (one commissioner recommended monthly reporting to match the check frequency). They also noted that larger counties have hired staff or contracted projects to reconcile platform data; smaller counties may lack capacity to do an exhaustive audit.

Why it matters: Short-term-rental collections can represent a material revenue source for local governments. Without property-level data, counties risk misallocation of revenue and gaps in enforcement of local tax and licensing rules.

What happens next: Commissioners asked staff to explore legislative or administrative routes to obtain more detailed remittance data and to consider targeted audits where collections appear inconsistent.