FYI - here is the information from the state of Florida website regarding what is taxable. My point is everyone needs to make their own decision. Taking tax advise on a boards and not doing your own reserach is not recommended.
What is Taxable?
Sales tax is due at the rate of 6 percent on rental charges or room rates paid for the right to use or occupy living or sleeping accommodations. Florida law refers to these living or sleeping accommodations as transient accommodations.
If you rent or lease any of these types of transient accommodations, you must collect sales tax and pay it to the Department of Revenue:
Hotel or motel
Apartment house or any other multiple unit structure (for example: duplex, triplex, quadraplex, condominium)
Rooming house
Tourist or mobile home court (for example: trailer court, motor court, recreational vehicle camp, fish camp)
Single-family dwelling
Garage apartment
Beach house or cottage
Cooperatively owned apartment
Condominium parcel
Timeshare resort
Mobile home
Any other house
Vehicle or other structure, place, or location held out to the public to be a place where living quarters or sleeping or housekeeping accommodations are provided to transient guests in exchange for payment.
Boats with a permanent fixed location at a dock and not operated on the water away from the dock by the tenant
Rental charges include any charge for the use of items or services required to be paid as a condition of the use or possession of the accommodation.
Most counties have a discretionary sales surtax, local option tax, tourist development tax, convention development tax, or tourist impact tax on rentals of transient accommodations. More information can be found in the Discretionary Sales Surtax brochure (Form GT-800019) and on the list of surtax counties and rates (Form DR-15DSS). You can find these and other publications on our web site at
www.myflorida.com/dor. For specific county rates, go to our Tax Law Library and do a search for DOR Local Option.
Landlords should contact us or their local county taxing agency to determine whether a county has a local tax(es) and whether you are required to report and pay this amount directly to your county or if you should report it on your sales and use tax return.
Florida Department of Revenue, Sales & Use Tax on Rental of Living or Sleeping Accommodations, Page 1
Florida Department of Revenue, Sales & Use Tax on Rental of Living or Sleeping Accommodations, Page 2
What is Exempt?
Certain leases and rentals are exempt from sales tax. The owner or owners representative must keep documentation to support the exempt transaction. These transactions are exempt:
Rental charges or room rates paid by a person who has a signed, bona fide written lease for a continuous residence longer than six months. If there is no written lease, and a person has continuously resided at any one location for a period longer than six months and has paid the tax on the rental charges or room rates due at that location for the first six months, additional charges for continuous residence at that location are tax-exempt.
Rental charges or room rates paid by a full-time student enrolled in an institution offering postsecondary education. A written statement from an official of the students institution, documenting that the student attends the institution full time, is proof of the students full-time enrollment.
Rental charges or room rates paid by military personnel who are on active duty and are present in the community under official orders. The military personnel must provide a copy of:
�� The official orders supporting the active duty status of the military personnel and making it necessary to occupy the accommodation.
Rental of accommodations in a migrant labor camp.
Trailer Camps,