Apparently, Doug Tonokawa assumes that those who host vacation rentals don’t pay their transient accommodations and general excise taxes (“Let Airbnb submit tax forms to state,” Star-Advertiser, Letters, July 6).

He proposed that online platforms like Airbnb send out 1099-like forms so government tax offices can collect all taxes due.

Turn that around: If most transient accommodations operators have been illegal since the 1980s, why have city and state tax offices willingly collected our “dirty money”?

If the government is internally inconsistent, must it not own its complicity in illegal operations?

The taxes I pay are openly and explicitly for “transient accommodations” on forms TA-1, TA-2 and Form G-45. If I am paying taxes on an “illegal” operation, are not the city and state complicit by turning a blind eye to the source?

For two decades we have heard no complaints from the City Council and the mayor who just legislated the end of our paying taxes.

Daniel Benedict

Waialua

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