Industry focus
Hospitality and Short-Term Rental Accountants
Hotels, Airbnb hosts, VRBO owners, vacation rental managers, and boutique lodging operators: we handle lodging tax, Section 280A vacation home rules, and depreciation so your property earns more than just good reviews.
How we work with this industry
Short-term rental operators sit at an intersection most owners do not see coming: the activity may be treated differently from a long-term rental for tax purposes, and separately from that, the state taxes the rental itself while county and city tourist taxes can apply on top of it. The rates and the collecting authority vary by municipality. We keep the books by property and make sure the right returns are being filed to the right places.
An engagement here usually starts with the payout reports. Airbnb, VRBO and Booking.com each describe the same stay differently, splitting the guest’s total into accommodation, cleaning fees, host service fees and taxes collected on your behalf. We rebuild each property’s revenue from those statements, separate what the platform remitted from what you still owe, and confirm which registrations exist at your specific address before anything else gets filed.
From there the work is monthly and property by property. Each unit carries its own revenue, cleaning and turnover cost, mortgage interest, insurance and depreciation schedule, so you can read one against another instead of averaging them. Many owners here are not U.S. persons, which adds ITIN work, the foreign-owned entity filings and, at sale, FIRPTA withholding. We handle those in house and in your language.
What We Do
What We Handle for Hosts and Lodging Operators
The filings and the bookkeeping behind a short-term rental, organized per property rather than as one pooled account.
Books Kept Property by Property
Revenue, cleaning, supplies, utilities, insurance and debt service tracked per unit in QuickBooks, so each property reports its own result and a weak one cannot hide behind a strong one.
Florida Sales Tax and the DR-15
Registration and the return on your assigned filing frequency, reconciled to what the platforms actually collected and remitted for you rather than to what you assumed they did.
Tourist and Municipal Lodging Taxes
Within Miami-Dade the collecting authority genuinely differs by city. We confirm what applies at your address, get the registrations in place, and file the local returns alongside the state one.
Platform Payout Reconciliation
Airbnb, VRBO and Booking.com statements broken back out into gross accommodation revenue, cleaning fees, host fees and taxes, then tied to the deposits that hit your bank.
Furnishings, Improvements and Depreciation
A real fixed asset schedule for the furniture, appliances and renovations that make a unit rentable, with the repair against improvement call made deliberately instead of at the invoice line.
Foreign Owners: ITIN, Form 5472 and FIRPTA
As a Certifying Acceptance Agent we handle ITIN applications without mailing your passport, plus the foreign-owned LLC reporting and the withholding paperwork when a property is sold.
Common Problems
Where Short-Term Rental Books Go Wrong
Four problems that are cheap to prevent while the year is open and expensive to reconstruct after it closes.
The Net Payout Booked as Revenue
The deposit is the guest total minus host fees, minus taxes the platform remitted, minus adjustments. Recording it as revenue understates the property, hides the fee load and breaks the sales tax reconciliation.
Assuming the Platform Registered You
A platform collecting a tax is not the same as you being registered and filing. Coverage is uneven by jurisdiction, and the obligation that stayed with you is the one that surfaces later.
No Record of Stay Length or Owner Time
How the activity gets classified can turn on average guest stay and on your own participation. Both are easy to record during the year and close to impossible to prove afterward.
Every Unit in One Ledger
Pooled books tell you the portfolio made money and nothing about which unit did. They also leave basis and depreciation untracked per property, which turns a sale into a scramble.
Services we offer in this industry
The services most often used by businesses in this industry. Each one is led by an Enrolled Agent.
Related industries
E-Commerce & Amazon Sellers
Amazon FBA, Shopify, eBay, Etsy, and multi-channel sellers: selling in 20 states? We navigate multi-state sales tax nexus, inventory COGS, and platform fees so you scale without a tax disaster waiting at the finish line.
Healthcare & Medical Practices
From dental offices, physician groups, home health agencies, telemedicine platforms, nurse practitioners, and independent doctors: we handle your payroll, entity structuring, and tax strategy so you can focus on your patients, not the IRS.
Construction & Contracting
General contractors, subcontractors, roofers, plumbers, electricians, HVAC technicians, and ironworkers: we manage your job costing, 1099 compliance, sales tax, and equipment depreciation so every dollar you earn stays accounted for.
Related guides
Short-Term Rental Loophole: 7-Day Rule, 100 and 500 Hour Tests
A short-term rental with an average guest stay of 7 days or less is not a rental activity under the IRS passive activity rules, so meeting one material participation test turns the loss nonpassive against wages.
No Tax on Tips and Overtime: 2025 Deductions of $25,000 and $12,500
The One, Big, Beautiful Bill Act created two deductions starting with tax year 2025: up to $25,000 of qualified tips and up to $12,500 of qualified overtime, or $25,000 on a joint return. Both phase out above $150,000 of modified adjusted gross income.
Common questions
Questions we hear in this industry
Straight answers, from an Enrolled Agent.
Contact Us
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