Airbnb hands over 1.2m to Paris city coffers

The home rental web platform Airbnb -- which last year agreed to start charging users in Paris a tourist tax -- handed over nearly 1.2 million euros to city authorities in the last quarter of 2015, the municipality said.

Airbnb reached an agreement with the Paris authorities last year and from October 2015 has charged users a tourist tax of 83 cents ($0.93) per night which it then passes on to the local authority.

As a result, Airbnb contributed 1.169 million euros ($1.310 million) to Paris city coffers for the last quarter of 2015 corresponding to "1.4 million overnight stays over this period", the municipality told AFP.

The agreement followed similar pledges by the San Francisco group to collect and remit taxes in Amsterdam from January 2015 and the US capital Washington and Chicago from February 2015.

Airbnb which allows people to rent out their rooms, apartments or homes was launched in 2008 and quickly became very popular.

But traditional hotel chains see it as a rival and accuse it of helping people avoid taxes and hosting illegal hotels on its website.