This controversial bill appears to be discriminatory against legal Hawaii vacation rentals. Read all the details.
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125 thoughts on “Hawaii Vacation Rental Tax Total Of 33% Proposed ”
This controversial bill appears to be discriminatory against legal Hawaii vacation rentals. Read all the details.
Proposed is the key word here. There are quite a few proposals being floated throughout the country right now, from all sorts of “leaders”. Let’s not get to excited right now.
Unfortunately, if people don’t get excited and protest, bills like this can just slide on in.
Illegal! Violates the United States Constitution as well as the Hawaii State Constitution. It disenfranchises a certain category of taxpayer.
Please make a community meeting to allow the people that live and work in the STVR industry. This proposed law is unfairly targeted at small businesses. If revenues are the reason for this bill it is misdirected and unfairly at STVR. The better choice to increase revenue would be to direct your tax bill to the 90% large hotels Mose of all this law and others should be applied equally to all Island rentals.
Hi,
Does Hawaii not want visitors to come to the Islands? The negative actions of those in power and perhaps even the citizens of Hawaii seem to indicate that they do not want the business.
Classic government move to use a tax to solve a problem that is easily solved by limiting the number of airline seats to the islands. Fewer plane loads of people means fewer rentals. It’s not just the tax it’s the paperwork and the administration that snowballs. Find a better way.
Your solution is to limit the number of airline seats? LOL…
And how do you propose to do that? What if you are a resident wanting to go back home to HI? Or a business individual trying to conduct business? Or any other person going to HI for non tourist related reasons? And can you imagine the cost of those seats if there was a finite supply? Geez… that idea is worse than limiting the STR…
I don’t mind paying tax in Hawaii as we tourists are impacting the islands. However if they up the vacation rental taxes that much I doubt we will be able to afford to go anymore. Sad but it’s all getting so crowded and expensive that we may have to find somewhere else .
In the Zoom meeting with the HB 820 committee 99% of people who testified were not in favor. It’s a sham to ask for community input and totally disregard it. Hotels want to be rid of vacation rentals period! End of story!
This does nothing to solve the problems plaguing Hawaii. It does call out one group, condo and time share renters, and gouges them, which clearly is not Constitutional. There is something wrong with the government in Hawaii and they are killing the goose who has laid the golden egg for them for many years. More and more people will not return and the prices will have to come down if they wish to attract enough visitors to keep the hotels, condos, timeshares, restaurants, shops etc in business. I have to wonder if the Governor and the Congress has had too many Mai Tai drinks.
This is outrageous! We own a condo at Kona Bali Kai which we short term rent when we aren’t there to defray the costs of the AOAO fees, utilities, and property taxes. How is that property any different than the Royal Kona Resort a little north or the Outrigger a little south? It isn’t! Except maybe that some of the condos at KBK have full-time residents (as we will be someday). This bill is totally discriminatory and clearly backed by hotel lobbyists and benefactors. Shameful!
The topic of Hawaiian over tourism has been debated for years by both residents and politicians living on Hawaii. Many posting on BOH have stated and agreed that there’s over tourism on the islands.
The 2 most common discussed solutions are to eliminate short term rental properties and price low end budget travelers from coming to the islands.
HB820 is designed to accomplice both those goals.
HB820 will eliminate budget travelers, but they’ll be replaced by individuals who can afford the tax. If there’s a drop off in reservations you’ll see condo owners lower prices to adjust for the new tax.
The tax will have little effect on curing over tourism or eliminating short term rental properties it just screws the budget traveler.
Thank you, BOH. As owners of an historic Volcano vacation rental a mile from Hawaii Volcanoes National Park, our guests are Kamaaina and visitors from elsewhere. Hotels rooms in Volcano are limited to 37 rooms and most of those are filled with visitors from elsewhere and bicycle groups. Most vacation rentals in Volcano are second homes for kamaaina. Having them occupied and cared for assures the homes will not be burglarized and trashed. Hawaii Volcanoes National Park is the number #2 strongest attraction in the state. Yet, with only 37 hotel rooms, where do these visitors stay? Passing HB 820 would cripple the local restaurants, stores, art galleries, gift shops of our small community.
Over the past twenty years we have stayed in rentals, some historic, and have experienced more aloha from the owners than anywhere else on the islands. That is what draws us back. I hope the short term rental owners are organized and will protest these outrageous taxes. Personally, I wonder how much the hotel industry is behind this. As always, where goes the money?
If the problem is illegal short term rentals in communities that take local housing away, then address that. Find and fine the hosts. Stop giving permits and tax numbers to ‘neighborhoods and other sensitive areas in our communities’. Short term rental buildings are designated and hosts buy in them to rent. Locals rarely can live full time in these resort focused buildings. Focus on the problem. Give the locals back their communities,and their housing by legally restricting all ST in all communities.
As usual, it seems like this proposal is trying to address an issue that is more relevant on Oahu and maybe Maui as well. Looking at it from here on Kauai where we have designated vacation rental zones and only licensed properties are able to legally operate, the arguments being made do not make any sense. Plus, I think there is a lot of grey area in terms of what is a vacation rental and what is not. For example, here in Poipu we have the Koloa Landing Resort, which consists of condos, many of which are privately owned. But the resort is managed by Mariott and runs like a hotel, with on-site restaurants, etc. Owners are completely hands off. How would that be classified?
I truly hope this means they won’t put 90 day minimums on condos.
Thank you
The person who is pushing this bill, is turning a blind eye to all that would be effected, For one all small businesses, restaurants, and all that depend on the tourism that provides jobs, which puts food on the table. They also help from having to draw unemployment because those were able are no longer able to employ them.
As the old saying goes, don’t Bite the hand that feeds you. 😡😡
Hawaii I hope you get what you are trying for. That way we can pull the Navy out and you can figure out how to pay for things!!!
Everyone should pay the same!
Hotels, B&B, Hoisted and Non Hoisted. Even playing field!
Any and all Taxes plus resort fees!!
All pay the same!
We visit the North Shore every winter and in beach homes. Almost all the homes’ in the areas we have stayed in, are rentals so it’s affecting other neighbors. Prices gone up so much in the last few years we’re not sure how much longer we will go.
Hawaii already has the highest tourist taxes in the entire nation. Your excuse is the tourism effects the infrastructure as well as the parks, rivers, mountains, beaches, etc. What will you do when everyone starts deciding to go to the South Pacific, such as Fiji, Tahiti, French, Polynesia, and your tourism drops by 50% then you’ll be crying to the federal government that you need to bail out because the states broke. If your goal is to cut back, the number of Theresa visit the state, then you’re well on your way to doing it. We already have trips planned for this year and next but if this bill goes through, I think I’ll cancel next year’s trip I hear Fiji and Tahiti are both beautiful and very welcoming to visitors
We’re probably not returning. Not going to go where we are not welcome. We’ll give our money to somewhere else. We’re just over Hawaii anymore. It’s unfortunate too, it was our favorite vacation every year. It’s so sad that they are driving everyone away. Isn’t tourism their bad and butter…..?
If the goal is to support hotels gouging people then I understand why they are doing this. If the goal is to keep housing from becoming more unaffordable than it is trying to reduce the spike in the AirBnB investment homes that have then spiked home prices in Hawaii and many areas across the country with increased demand from vacation rental investments pricing out folks who actually want to live in a home and work in Hawaii then a better way would be to have a property tax rate for primary residence (current rates) and then raise property taxes on non-primary residence homes, reducing that demand and allowing those who want to own to live in Hawaii afford it. Hawaii’s challenge is more acute due to the limited space.
They all ready do that.
Kauai Co. does this. In addition to paying greatly increased tax rate for being an “Investment Property” (their label for anything that is not your primary residence), you then get hit with the additional 50% if it is a transient vacation rental. They also charge $750 a year for the permit, plus an additional $1200 annual for trash collection (to be fair, part of why it is so much more is that trash collection for non-rentals is super cheap – around $12 a month).
That’s one way to deter tourism – Hawai’i main revenue!!!
Honestly I’m not sure that people who put proposals like this forward have Any economic sense – didn’t they learn/see what their coffers were like during the pandemic?
What will they ask from the Federal government when they don’t have enough money to pay their Government Employees – “we were so dumb we stopped tourism”…
Looks like the islands need new representatives. You’d be taxing the people who are bringing their money to the islands. The islands flourish from tourist who bring their hard earned money. If we can barely afford to come. We’ll buy groceries and eat in. That does nothing for the hurting restaurants. We’ll buy less souvenirs. That hurts the mom and pop stores. And yet the hotels in Kaanipalli who keep selling time shares instead of renting rooms. Eventually the whole coast will be timeshares. Rentals will be our only choice. Taxing visitors at 33% and not the hotels is not the spirit of aloha. It does nothing to solve the problem of employees not being able to make fair wages and being able to afford living on the islands they were born.