Judge denies Hawaii’s move to get Airbnb host records

HONOLULU (AP) — A judge is denying Hawaii’s move to compel Airbnb to hand over a decade’s worth of vacation rental host receipts and other documents to state tax investigators.

Hawaii First Circuit Court Judge James Ashford’s ruled Thursday the state didn’t establish that the information it was seeking wasn’t available from other sources. He also found the state didn’t sufficiently show that Airbnb users may have failed to comply with tax laws.

Hawaii wants the records to find out which hosts haven’t been paying the state’s equivalent of hotel and sales taxes on their vacation rental and bed-and-breakfast listings.

Airbnb has argued the subpoena amounts to an unprecedented, “massive intrusion” into the private data of 16,000 of its hosts. It says serving the subpoena would violate state and federal law.