[kelnos]

So basically SF wants companies like Airbnb to do their police/enforcement work for them. The city should be going after the unregistered renters themselves. Sure, that's potentially harder, but I can see that it'd be a burden to order a company to do it for them.

[reza_n]

Who would pay for all this extra enforcement? My guess is that a large portion of this short term rental income is untaxed. Can't have both sides, no regulation and no tax. I pay my share when I rent a hotel. (Apologies if airbnb renters are paying the appropriate city, state, and federal taxes).

[mrgordon]

Airbnb takes the appropriate local taxes automatically as part of the booking

[areyousure]

San Francisco collects no shortage of taxes.

[kafkaesq]

So basically SF wants companies like Airbnb to do their police/enforcement work for them.

Because it's the most cost-effective way of doing things, and -- in this ethically-challeneged startup culture of ours -- it gets the message across.

It's also no different from how regulations are applied to most all other industries in that regard. Liquor stores are required to card anyone who looks like they might possibly be under 21 (and are fined for not doing so). You can argue that the city "should be going after the underage drinkers themselves" -- but decades of empirical evidence suggest this would lead to the laws being widely unenforced.