Taxe de Sejour from 2019 - surely not €300+?

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Frenchlady
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Post by Frenchlady »

Gillian F - Other half is going through all the paperwork we have just received now and on his understanding (no easier to understand) we are now supposed to include it in the price. As we are not classified we will have to pay 3% per person per night on our room rate, which for us at today's rate would be 93c per person, per night. This means we will have to put up our nightly rates next year to cover this. It also state that tax sejour is now due to be paid by the landlord (not the guest). It is not to be shown on any invoices.

How the hell Airbnb are going to sort this out is beyond me. I am going to e-mail my commune now and ask them if Airbnb will continue to take the tax off guests next year if that is now their ruling. If I ever get this years sorted first!!!!
GillianF
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Post by GillianF »

Thank you Frenchlady.

3% per person per night of the room rate. Do they assume full occupancy? Probably. We'd be lucky!!!



Gillian
Frenchlady
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Post by Frenchlady »

No chance of being full in a B&B for 2 months. Tourists have been dropping off over the last 3 years and now having to put up our room rate will not help. Although saying that, the silly people who are quite happy to pay commission to the OTA's they probably will not even notice prices going up. Have sent my e-mail to the commune and if they say, yes Airbnb are still going to collect the tax, then I am off of there - cannot deal with the stress (they also did not pay us this week for a booking and that stressed me out). We already have increased our room rate considerably on B.com to cover the commission, now will have to add a bit more and they will then take commission on that - we can never win. Wish we could retire now but still a few more years to slog as the UK moved the "goal posts". Either that or getting very inclined to sell, buy something smaller and give all this up. Sorry, we are in "silly season" with guests asking to arrive at mid-day etc. etc. so feeling like a rant.
GillianF
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Post by GillianF »

Oh dear! It seems everything is conspiring against us - add in the heat and 'silly season'.

I'm going into our local office in September to find out what the tds will be next year and how they will charge it, collect it etc. If they are going to charge per person per night for every night we declare we are open then we will reduce our season to the core number of weeks when we are fairly sure we will have bookings.

The trouble is that the 'collecting authority' always insist that it is not us that pays the tds but the guest so it shouldn't impact on us. But, of course, they have no practical commercial experience of running any sort of business.

If I respond to a guest enquiry along the lines of "Yes, the rental will be £X for your holiday plus £X per person per night for local taxes" they will just go elsewhere.
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oasiscouple
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Post by oasiscouple »

GillianF wrote:If I respond to a guest enquiry along the lines of "Yes, the rental will be £X for your holiday plus £X per person per night for local taxes" they will just go elsewhere.
That is exactly what we do both for our B&B and our beach apartment and so far it has not stopped anyone booking. Anyone who has been to France before or who does their research will know about the TDS so why pretend it doesn't exist?
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GillianF
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Post by GillianF »

I'm interested that you've never had a problem breaking out the tds as an 'extra' or separate payment.

Do you charge your rental in sterling and the tds in Euros? We take sterling payments to a UK bank for the ease of the guest so I'm not sure, yet, how we will deal with the tds as a separate payment.

I'm not trying to pretend the tds doesn't exist I just don't think the potential guest wants to be bothered with it. As I said above, no-one has ever asked me what the tds is and if they need to pay me for it.
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Post by Peggymac »

The flat/fixed rate does not apply to us but I did a bit of research and it seem that there should be an abatement applied by your commune (I think it is mandatory) that reflects how full they think the properties are for the time that they are available. If you are open all year then I think the figure is between 10% and 50%. There are different bands for the number of nights that you are open. Have you checked that you are getting this?

It does seem that the two different systems "reel" and "forfait" are targeted differently with the first aimed at the guests and the latter aimed at the owners, I guess you charge the guests what they should pay and then you take up the slack for what you have not managed to get booked. With the abatement though there must be the possibility that if you had a really good year then you get more tax from your clients than you are expected to pay, so what to do with the surplus as it has to be illegal to hold on to it as you are collecting the tax on behalf of the commune.
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Post by Peggymac »

GillianF wrote:I'm interested that you've never had a problem breaking out the tds as an 'extra' or separate payment.

Do you charge your rental in sterling and the tds in Euros? We take sterling payments to a UK bank for the ease of the guest so I'm not sure, yet, how we will deal with the tds as a separate payment.

I'm not trying to pretend the tds doesn't exist I just don't think the potential guest wants to be bothered with it. As I said above, no-one has ever asked me what the tds is and if they need to pay me for it.
We now take payments direct in AUD, GBP, USD and EUR (so no currency conversion required by most of our guests), our website calculates it for the guest and allows them to pay (everything except the TDS) by bank transfer, PayPal or French cheque or euros cash on arrival. The TDS is always listed separately in EUR and is paid by French cheque or euros cash on arrival. Our guests know all this from the point that they book (and for non French people it's explained as a local tax to help enhance tourism in the area) so it's no problem for them
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africanpenguin
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Post by africanpenguin »

GillianF wrote:As I said above, no-one has ever asked me what the tds is and if they need to pay me for it.
I can understand why it's difficult to ask for a separate payment and a separate time and in a different currency and why you prefer to bundle it in. However, I'm not I'm not sure why you expect the guest to ask about it unprompted or think that them not doing so indicates they would be unwilling to pay it.

Tourist taxes are applied in many countries across Europe, so I'm really surprised if anyone who travels regularly isn't aware of it at least as a concept. However, not all localities within those countries apply it, so equally I wouldn't expect people to think anything odd in those locations where they are *not* asked to pay it. At least speaking from my own experience, I assume my accommodation provider will tell me if and how much I need to pay, and that they will collect it, simply because they always do so. It would never occur to me to ask about it.
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oasiscouple
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Post by oasiscouple »

GillianF wrote:I'm interested that you've never had a problem breaking out the tds as an 'extra' or separate payment.

Do you charge your rental in sterling and the tds in Euros? We take sterling payments to a UK bank for the ease of the guest so I'm not sure, yet, how we will deal with the tds as a separate payment.
I start to see where you are coming from as you evidently aim exclusively for the UK market. Over 25 years ago before internet advertising I was an early advertiser in the Chez Nous brochure circulated in the UK so I also quoted prices in pounds.

Now the world is much smaller and like Peggymac we have guests from many corners of the world although we are not quite as clued up to take payments in different currencies so we advertise in Euros. It makes the accounting much simpler as well as tax returns etc. Having said that, we give UK guests the option to pay in pounds using the exchange rate at the time of payment.

Our B&B guests pay the TDS along with the payment for their stay on arrival, both in Euros, except for airbnb guests who have paid in advance, including, since July this year, the TDS. When it comes to us paying the TDS to the tourist office we will simply exclude the airbnb guest payments from the calculation whether or not airbnb have charged the correct amount. If it is wrong, we will consider it is a matter between airbnb & the tourist office to sort out.

Our beach apartment holiday lettings have been paid up front 8 weeks before arrival and the guests are told on the booking form and repeated in the T&Cs that the TDS is to be paid in cash before they leave and we give them a simple cash receipt.

The TDS payment has never been queried.
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Post by Dusty »

I get back to my point about equating TdS to VAT. Whilst everyone may understand they need to pay VAT they do not want to pay it separately or in a different currency. If the fonctionaires can't understand the concept of the difference between income received (rental plus TdS) and income declared (rental only) then they don't deserve their job (or pension).

As to paying a flat rate for the period you are open on an assumed occupancy, that goes right away from a usage based tax and becomes a tax on running holiday accommodation, surely that can't be right? It goes against what the TdS is supposed to be all about.
Frenchlady
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Post by Frenchlady »

Just got a reply back from our commune where I had asked them if Airbnb should still be taking the tax sejour (which they still have not corrected for this season). Reply was no, the commune have been contacting Airbnb but not receiving a reply ..... I have had this problem for 2 months. Oh what a mess!!
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Post by GillianF »

Dusty: I agree.
Frenchlady
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Post by Frenchlady »

Dusty and Gillian F - so do we agree and my husband has written to our commune and told them so.
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Post by Tournesol »

We get nearly all of our guests through B.com, who don't take tds but do notify the guest that it is payable. We just collect it at the end of their stay. It usually only equates to a euro or two, as it's mostly one or two night stays at 50 cents a night per adult, and I have sometimes forgotten to ask for it, in which case we pay it anyway. Nobody has objected.
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