Draft for attorney review

Draft Tax & Local Compliance Policy

Sales/lodging tax, local rental rules, permits, owner responsibility, platform fees, payouts, and chargebacks.

Not final legal terms

This document is a planning draft. It should be reviewed, revised, and approved by qualified counsel before TrustStay uses it as public legal policy.

Purpose

Give a CPA/attorney a focused review document for TrustStay’s tax and local-rule structure before real payments launch.

Attorney focus

Confirm whether TrustStay, the owner, or both must collect/remit sales, lodging, occupancy, tourism, or similar taxes.

Confirm whether obligations differ by city, county, state, country, stay length, property type, or room-vs-entire-home booking.

Confirm safe wording for owner tax responsibility, platform service fees, payment processing fees, refunds, chargebacks, and payout reversals.

Confirm whether TrustStay needs registrations, marketplace facilitator treatment, tax reports, permits, or lodging platform filings before public launch.

Product structure

TrustStay is designed as a marketplace-style booking platform where owners list accommodations and guests book stays. The platform may charge a TrustStay service fee, hold/demo-protect booking funds, support refund review, and facilitate owner payouts through Stripe Connect or another provider. Final wording must match the actual production payment flow.

Owner compliance fields collected

Owner confirms they have permission to host the space.

Owner confirms they checked local rental rules, occupancy limits, permits, safety rules, and stay restrictions.

Owner selects whether a permit/license is required and provides a permit/license number when applicable.

Owner may provide a tax registration number and compliance notes for admin review.

Owner acknowledges tax responsibility unless TrustStay explicitly states it collects/remits tax for that location.

Owner acknowledges payouts may be delayed, reduced, reversed, or held during refund review, chargebacks, fraud review, or legal/compliance issues.

Tax handling decision needed

Option A: owner-remittance model during private beta, where owners remain responsible for applicable taxes unless TrustStay separately states otherwise.

Option B: platform tax-collection model, where TrustStay calculates, collects, reports, and/or remits taxes for some or all locations.

Option C: mixed model by jurisdiction, depending on marketplace facilitator, lodging tax, occupancy tax, and local short-term rental rules.

Checkout and receipts

Checkout and receipts should avoid implying that TrustStay has fully calculated or remitted every legally required tax unless confirmed. If taxes are shown, final policy should say what taxes are included, what taxes are not included, whether taxes are estimated, and who is responsible for any additional local taxes.

Platform fees and payout responsibility

Final policy should explain that the TrustStay fee is a platform/service fee, separate from owner nightly charges and payment-provider fees. Counsel/CPA should confirm how refunds, partial refunds, non-refundable fees, chargebacks, payout reversals, negative balances, and owner tax records should be handled.

Admin review

TrustStay admin may pause, reject, or request changes to listings if permit, tax, local-rule, occupancy, safety, payout, or owner responsibility details are missing or unclear. Final policy should confirm what admin can require before approval.

Review note

After counsel finalizes this document, update the matching public TrustStay policy page and keep this legal-review draft archived for launch records.

Back to pack Contact TrustStay support