Hotel Tax

The LA Times is running an article about efforts by the City of Los Angeles to collect hotel taxes from homeowners who are renting out rooms through the Airbnb "sharing" service. 

If you’re renting out rooms through Airbnb.com or similar websites in Los Angeles, you could soon get an online warning urging you to collect and pay city taxes aimed at hotels. City officials were told Monday to start sending such warnings to anyone advertising Los Angeles rentals through such websites as a City Council committee focused on the budget mulled how to reap money from popular services that allow hosts to rent rooms to travelers for short stays.  Under city regulations, people renting out rooms through Airbnb or other such websites can face the same kind of taxes levied on hotels, which must collect taxes from guests on behalf of the city. But so far, pinning down the addresses of people renting out rooms has been “like looking for a needle in a haystack,” said Ed Cabrera, assistant director of the city’s office of finance...

Full story at http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-tax-warnings-airbnb-hosts-la-20140908-story.html

While it may be hard to find the individual addresses of Airbnb rentals, it will be easy to find the address and ownership of the UCLA Grand Hotel.  Hmmm!  Can the City of LA really chase homeowners about room rental taxes and not collect the same taxes from the Grand Hotel?