No Tax Subsidies for Corporate Landlords

I urge you to vote "NO" on HB1768 (Brown) SB1066 (Brown), SB1088 (Nurrenbern), SB1784 (Schnelting), SB1303 (Moon), and HB2060 (Vernetti). This legislation hands a tax break to wealthy corporate landlords at the expense of working families and the public good. At first glance, the bill appears to be a simple definitional cleanup, but its core function is to formally classify short-term rental properties (specifically single-family homes leased for less than thirty days) as "residential property." This includes homes owned by LLCs, partnerships, and sole proprietors that are run as de facto hotels through platforms like Airbnb and Vrbo. The fundamental problem with this change is one of fairness. These properties are not homes; they are commercial enterprises. When a corporation buys up a house in a residential neighborhood and rents it out to tourists 365 days a year, that property is functioning as a business. It should be classified and taxed as commercial property, which typically carries a higher assessment rate than owner-occupied housing. By classifying these commercial ventures as residential, this bill provides a direct financial subsidy to large-scale landlords and real estate investors. It forces the rest of us—the homeowners and renters who actually live in our communities—to subsidize their profit-making activity. This is a giveaway to corporations at a time when our cities and counties are struggling to fund essential services like public schools, infrastructure, and first responders. Every dollar these commercial properties save in property taxes is a dollar that is not going to our classrooms or our roads. In addition, this policy ignores the negative impact that rampant short-term rentals have on housing availability. By making it more profitable to run a mini-hotel than to provide a long-term home to a family, these tax advantages exacerbate our state's housing crisis. We should be discouraging the conversion of our housing stock into investment vehicles, not making it easier with preferential tax treatment. Supporters of this bill may argue it provides clarity, but it provides clarity only for the profit margins of out-of-town investors. True clarity would involve drawing a bright line between a primary residence and a business. A property owned by an LLC that rents by the night is a business and should be taxed as one. For the sake of tax fairness and to stop incentivizing the loss of long-term housing, I respectfully ask you to oppose these bills.