- Thinkstock
A local woman who rents out her Ukrainian Village condo on Airbnb says she has nothing but great things to say about doing so. Using the service has introduced her to cool strangers and changed her perspective on people for the better—and it often makes her as much as two times more money in a month than she would make with a standard tenant. But she’d rather not be named because of a lingering fear of being caught in a gray area that had become familiar territory to people participating in the sharing or peer economy.
Chicago’s joining a growing number of municipalities across the country who are taxing the ever-increasing sharing economy, which brings legitimacy and, eventually perhaps, leverage to these start-ups. In addition to Chicago, Airbnb has started collecting and remitting taxes in Portland, San Francisco, San Jose, and Washington, D.C., according to Christopher Nulty, an Airbnb spokesman. The company has already sent $5 million to San Francisco and Portland alone since last summer. Taxes may be a small price to pay for guaranteed income over the long run.
“I feel like it’s such a different experience,” she says. “Airbnb is such an amazing community builder, one they can’t get in a hotel. I don’t have a problem with the tax and how it’s been applied so far, but regulation hasn’t caught up with the technology—just transferring all the regulations to Airbnb properties doesn’t make sense at all.”
