When Williamson was in the market for a new family car, he bought the BMW 3 Series convertible and covers the payments by renting it to strangers on a peer-to-peer car sharing app called Turo.When Chris Williamson was in the market for a new family car, a timely ad and conversations with a co-worker convinced him to try something out of the ordinary. He bought a BMW 3 Series convertible and covers the payments by renting it to strangers on a peer-to-peer car sharing app called Turo.
The battle is heating up in some three dozen state legislatures as well as the courts and offices of local tax authorities. Barraged with lobbying from both sides, lawmakers are grappling with how to regulate an emerging industry without destroying it – a repeat of recent fights between the taxi industry and Uber and Lyft, and between hotels and Airbnb.“The tragedy would be if we snuffed out something like this in its infancy that has a lot of great potential,” said Arizona Rep.
In metropolitan Phoenix, the baseball league that draws fans to 10 stadiums for spring training every March could see a sharp decrease in revenue as the new platform for car rental grows, said its president, Jeff Meyer. Rental car taxes help cover debt payments for some of the Cactus League’s facilities and for the Arizona Cardinals football stadium.
The peer-to-peer companies won a temporary reprieve last month, when the provision was dropped from the bill. But Ohio Sen. Bob Peterson, the No. 2 Republican, said he anticipates a stand-alone regulatory bill will be introduced soon.