We have the policy checked, and have had guests who provide phone numbers, which is reassuring.
Annoyingly a recent booking did not provide one, which is against my stated policy.
I am uneasy accepting guests who are unwilling to provide a contact number.
I sent an email and BCM offered to call them to request one. However surely we can cancel a booking if it is accepted when contrary to the stated policy?
As an update, I have been told again that BCM will collect all tourist tax on behalf of guests from Jan2019, and submit it on my behalf. (But not how).
They now seem to be calculating the tourist tax and billing the guests for it as part of the invoicing. It is not being paid to me, so I will have to wait and see if they manage to submit it to the local tax authorities correctly.
I have not received a response to the question of how will I know if and when the tax has been submitted.
As I have a legal obligation to ensure local Tourist tax is paid for my property, and I have not had a confirmation of payment of Tourist tax by BCM, I remain uneasy.
Has anyone with a French property seen a successful payment of Tourist Tax by BCM yet?
you don't get to choose. For French properties on the booking.com site you have to say if you are a professional renter or not, and classify the property. After entering these details, it is out of my control whether booking.com charges the guest room price or total price (room price + tourist taxe).
For 2019 booking.com was flagging the tourist tax as an extra cost, but leaving it to the renter to collect. In december , the changes look to have happened that I flagged.
I'm wondering if anyone else with a French property has resolved this issue?
yes I have been paying city taxes locally myself for several years on our French rental apartment.
The change in December is that booking.com has collected this tax from the guest (most of the time), and I am not sure how/when/if they are going to remit it ...
sorry 1/1/20 was a typo, the law was effective from 1/1/2019. booking.com has had the extra city tax charges flagged for 2019 i.e. Total Price = Room Price + extras (city tax). But they used to collect only the Room Price from the guest, and leave me to collect and pay city tax.
In VAT/tax/charges it says "A city tax of € 2.48 per person, per night is not included". So this is why the Room Price is less then the Total Price i.e. city tax is added.
This was all fine as I have been paying city taxes locally myself for several years.
But the recent change made I think in December was for booking.com to attempt to collect and remit the city tax themselves. I noticed this as they started deducting city tax on my invoices and have charged the guest the Total Price. However, this has been a little inconsistent for the last few weeks, and has changed twice in December. So I am looking for clarity ...
It's worth checking Nov/Dec 2019 bookings if you are in France.
I had a booking in Dec where booking.com charged the guest total price = room price + city tax
A week later booking.com flagged the city tax in the Total price calculation, but told me I needed to collect it from the guest directly, as they only charged the guest the room price.
As it is law from 1/1/2020 that booking.com must collect and remit the city tax, I'm sure it will change again. And I see a guest in Jan has been charged the Total Price = Room price + city tax.
the response is "As per new French legislation which was effective since 1st January 2019, Booking.com is required to collect and remit tourist tax for its non professional partners in France. This will only be the case for the reservations of which Booking.com is facilitating the payment between the booker and the French partner."
I see this law also quoted on the Homeaway site. However when I asked "Are we going to see confirmation that booking.com has paid city taxes? I will still have to pay city tax for bookings made outside of booking.com" ... it was kicked upstairs to a specialist to answer. Still awaiting a response.
I am now guessing that booking.com will hold on to these city taxes on my behalf while they work out how to send them on to the right tourist board. It's not going to be easy as each French property location will have a different local city/tourist tax arrangements, with individual tourist accounts! So I'm tracking what is withheld in the mean time. I guess it is the (new) law.
We have the policy checked, and have had guests who provide phone numbers, which is reassuring.
Annoyingly a recent booking did not provide one, which is against my stated policy. I am uneasy accepting guests who are unwilling to provide a contact number.
I sent an email and BCM offered to call them to request one. However surely we can cancel a booking if it is accepted when contrary to the stated policy?
has anyone sorted this out?
As an update, I have been told again that BCM will collect all tourist tax on behalf of guests from Jan2019, and submit it on my behalf. (But not how).
They now seem to be calculating the tourist tax and billing the guests for it as part of the invoicing. It is not being paid to me, so I will have to wait and see if they manage to submit it to the local tax authorities correctly.
I have not received a response to the question of how will I know if and when the tax has been submitted.
As I have a legal obligation to ensure local Tourist tax is paid for my property, and I have not had a confirmation of payment of Tourist tax by BCM, I remain uneasy.
Has anyone with a French property seen a successful payment of Tourist Tax by BCM yet?
thanks marco
what does "link your property" mean?
I'm awaiting a response from BDC. I'd like them to just be consistent on this. I have had 4 changes since November.
My preference is that they collect the tourist tax upfront (as I am not at the property), and pay it to me so I can submit it as normal.
They did this once. I have requested this already, but they quoted the 1/1/2019 law at me
you don't get to choose. For French properties on the booking.com site you have to say if you are a professional renter or not, and classify the property. After entering these details, it is out of my control whether booking.com charges the guest room price or total price (room price + tourist taxe).
For 2019 booking.com was flagging the tourist tax as an extra cost, but leaving it to the renter to collect. In december , the changes look to have happened that I flagged.
I'm wondering if anyone else with a French property has resolved this issue?
yes I have been paying city taxes locally myself for several years on our French rental apartment.
The change in December is that booking.com has collected this tax from the guest (most of the time), and I am not sure how/when/if they are going to remit it ...
sorry 1/1/20 was a typo, the law was effective from 1/1/2019. booking.com has had the extra city tax charges flagged for 2019 i.e. Total Price = Room Price + extras (city tax). But they used to collect only the Room Price from the guest, and leave me to collect and pay city tax.
In VAT/tax/charges it says "A city tax of € 2.48 per person, per night is not included". So this is why the Room Price is less then the Total Price i.e. city tax is added.
This was all fine as I have been paying city taxes locally myself for several years.
But the recent change made I think in December was for booking.com to attempt to collect and remit the city tax themselves. I noticed this as they started deducting city tax on my invoices and have charged the guest the Total Price. However, this has been a little inconsistent for the last few weeks, and has changed twice in December. So I am looking for clarity ...
It's worth checking Nov/Dec 2019 bookings if you are in France.
I had a booking in Dec where booking.com charged the guest total price = room price + city tax
A week later booking.com flagged the city tax in the Total price calculation, but told me I needed to collect it from the guest directly, as they only charged the guest the room price.
As it is law from 1/1/2020 that booking.com must collect and remit the city tax, I'm sure it will change again. And I see a guest in Jan has been charged the Total Price = Room price + city tax.
the response is "As per new French legislation which was effective since 1st January 2019, Booking.com is required to collect and remit tourist tax for its non professional partners in France. This will only be the case for the reservations of which Booking.com is facilitating the payment between the booker and the French partner."
I see this law also quoted on the Homeaway site. However when I asked "Are we going to see confirmation that booking.com has paid city taxes? I will still have to pay city tax for bookings made outside of booking.com" ... it was kicked upstairs to a specialist to answer. Still awaiting a response.
I am now guessing that booking.com will hold on to these city taxes on my behalf while they work out how to send them on to the right tourist board. It's not going to be easy as each French property location will have a different local city/tourist tax arrangements, with individual tourist accounts! So I'm tracking what is withheld in the mean time. I guess it is the (new) law.