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Hilton Head collects $150,000 from vacation rental owners after identifying VRBO "properties of interest"

Brian Heffernen

Skift Take

The free tax ride may be over for vacation rental owners listing their properties on sites such as VRBO and HomeAway.

The Town of Hilton Head Island has collected about $150,000 in back taxes and penalties since July from property owners who didn't pay local accommodations taxes. An effort to identify residential properties being used for short-term rentals without reporting proper taxes began in May when the town hired two summer interns to search for noncompliant rental properties. The Accommodations-Tax Recovery Project team identified about 1,700 rental properties of interest by searching self-rental sites, primarily Vacation Rentals by Owner (VRBO.com), and checking Beaufort County property records. Property owners were then contacted by mail, e-mail or phone to ensure they were paying the required accommodations tax. "We believe that there has always been some issu

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